Going to ground

[ACMI: Confusion]

Joule woke up as she felt herself moving.

"Please stay quiet."

She heard a voice she didn't recognise from above her and she tried to crack open her eyes.

It was dark in here, too dark. Her eyes adjusted quickly enough to make out the rough edges of what was around her though.

She was lying on a bed of some sort that was being wheeled down a corridor.

"What's going on?" She whispered.

"Evacuation due to the current terrorist threat." The woman answered. Now that Joule looked back at her she could see it was a nurse.

They got to an elevator and got in. The nurse hit some buttons that were illuminated and the elevator descended.

Around a minute passed before they stopped moving, how far underground had they gone? The nurse wheeled her bed into a new corridor and passed it on to someone else. A doctor? A male nurse?

"Do you think you're able to walk?" the man asked.

Joule lifted herself but admitted "I feel a little weak."

"Don't push yourself." The man advised "From what we heard, you collapsed after overusing your ability. I wouldn't be shocked if your body was having trouble."

"Who told you-" Joule began only for a familiar voice to interrupt.

"Joule!"

It was Uiharu. She rushed up and walked beside the bed as the man continued to push it. She took the time to fill Joule in.

They had made it to the frog-faced doctor's hospital but he'd ordered an evacuation. With everything that was going on, it was too much of a risk for the patients to stay in the main hospital.

When they stopped moving, Joule was able to sit up in bed and she saw that the others were here too. Shirai and GV were still out cold and it seemed that Saten hadn't yet woken up.

"I did confirm that the link isn't in there any more though." Lumen confirmed "She's not in a coma or anything. At least I don't think so."

Uiharu was fine and even if she was still tense over what had happened earlier, she was glad at least one of them was up now. Adding to that there were a few more friends here that came as a small shock.

Index was here, apparently she'd run into Accelerator and was looking for something to help him in the hospital. Other than her there were a trio of Misaka's sisters here.

Speaking of Misaka, Uiharu had contacted Misaka and told her to come to the hospital. They'd need to give her more details when she got here though since it was entirely possible that their phone call could be spied on.

Lumen flew to the underground garage and up to the surface to watch for her arrival.

As they waited though, they managed to talk one of the Sisters into telling them roughly what was going on. At least as far as Last Order was concerned.

There was a group out to get her, likely the one that GV had knocked out while he thought that member of the church was on Index's side. Then there was said member of the church who had fought with a civilian as he protected Last Order.

"And Accelerator?"

"Unknown."

As they talked though, Lumen grew tense.

"Soldiers. They're entering the main hospital."

Before too long though, Accelerator showed up there and dealt with them. The sounds of fighting could be heard from upstairs.

In the time they had to wait, Index was getting more worried. They'd had her explain the woman from the church's magic but it looked like she was getting ready to leave as she explained.

"It's called Divine Punishment. It's a large scale magic born from the idea that no one should feel any hatred towards God. She's likely using Idol theory to allow herself to act as God- or rather his son- so that anyone who thinks about fighting her becomes incapacitated."

"But Shirai wasn't going to fight her." Uiharu pointed out "Before she passed out, she was talking about stopping her."

"It's the same really." Index noted "She thought about opposing her and the spell activated."

As the sounds of fighting stopped, Index began moving to leave via the car park. Lumen alerted them that Misaka had just arrived though and she was told how to get to them via the underground car park.

Index ran past Misaka as the latter came in. Index seemed to be trying to reach Cccelerator but they stopped her for now. She explained her part of the story properly after that. She'd been saved by Accelerator in the very scene that GV had seen earlier that night and she'd come to the hospital to get a battery for him.

"But there wasn't one." Index admitted sadly.

One of the sisters then walked over to them. Misaka turned to them, looking a little embarrassed. It was rare for her to see them while a crisis was still ongoing and as this one was related to accelerator-

"I have some new information, Misaka 10032 admits, forcing a calmness into her voice to prevent panic." She spoke calmly. The fact was that if she hadn't specified, none of the rest would have known it was forced

"What is it?" Misaka asked, taking a leadership role.

"20001 has been captured by Hound Dog, reports Misaka 10032."

Last order. Last order had been kidnapped successfully by the soldiers.

Misaka punched her fist into her palm "I'm going after her."

There was a pause, there was no one else who really could help-

"Can you let me come too?" Joule asked as she climbed out of the bed. She was doing much better by now. All that bothered her was a slight headache "I'll be able to help you find her."

Misaka hesitated and glanced at 10032 who shook her head.

"20001 is currently on the move. Any information we could give you would be out of date by the time you're out of the garage, explains Misaka 10032."

Misaka hesitated a moment longer before nodding "Okay, you can come too as long as you can keep up."

Joule nodded and they headed out of the room, They caught up to Index right at the exit of the car park as they heard a rumble. An earthquake that shook the city.

Behind them, standing next to a truck in the car park was a large number of sisters. At least ten of them.

Misaka nodded at them and the one in charge answered her.

"We wish you luck big sister."

No Misaka was specified in that comment as the speaker. Joule wondered if that meant something as the three of them ran out into the rain.

End of chapter.

And yes, that big earthquake at the end was Accelerator's awsome building throw.

Next chapter is the "true" 200th chapter. Not counting side chapters or anything special like that the added to the count without being a true chapter.

Edited because some of what I wrote didn't even sound like english as I began to write said 200th chapter.