Superhuman

[ACMI: Emptiness]

Even as GV turned to join in whatever was going on, the feeling of the area shifted.

Previously, this had felt like a "Normal part of academy city" but now it felt like "A place where he was at risk."

It was a feeling he got sometimes at the start of missions. It was nothing supernatural to him, just instincts trained through a dangerous life.

If it was a dangerous place though, that didn't change what he was going to do.

He watched as the figure approached the small crowd. The people in the crowd reacted, pointing and they started drawing all kinds of bizarre weapons.

No, not bizarre. Occult. Or old fashion, it varied.

GV ran a bit faster, muffling his footsteps with a crafty bit of magnetic repulsion. A footstep is wasted kinetic energy from a foot hitting a floor, so if he didn't touch the floor it wouldn't make that tell-tale sound.

There would be a slight sound of crackling electricity, but no one would assume that it was a footstep.

"You were warned." The man named Acqua spoke to all of them as he drew, from seemingly nowhere GV could see from his angle on the road below the crowd on a bridge above, a large... club-like weapon. A Mace?

The man vanished from the spot he was in as GV shoved his magnetic force below himself to launch him up to the bridge. Sounds of fighting greeted him as the man seemed to teleport around. No, as GV focused he could sort of track the movement. It just didn't make sense.

His legs didn't move and yet he moved fast enough to trick the unenhanced eyes. It was even hard for GV to tell that though.

In a second, Acqua defeated three members of whatever this group was. He appeared besides each of them in turn and whacked them aside.

But GV had dealt with faster. Though he'd normally carried a weapon with him when he did. He didn't have his pistol on him right now (Taking a gun to a bath house had seemed a little silly so he'd just hidden it on the side of a road.)

GV was still carrying throwing knives though. As the crowd was torn apart, he cut off a bit of his hair and bound it around the knife. Tossing it at Acqua in a fluid movement.

And Acqua blocked it, easily. His mace had swung in that fraction of a second and knocked his knives aside. It had given the person he'd shifted to a chance to slash with his sword but Acqua just flowed away and back in towards the man to dodge his attack and knock him aside.

[ACMI3: Magic and Weapons]

Acqua didn't even hesitate, as he took out the one he'd been fighting, his path instantly shifted towards GV.

His reflexes, strength and movement were incredible, but GV was as fast as lightning.

The mace was swung and GV took a breath and burst into electrons. The mace passed right through GV as he dodged to try and get to a blind spot. As he shifted back to flesh, he gathered electricity in his hand to try to use a Dragonsphere but Acqua flowed back to deal with more of the strange group, in the process dodging GV's counter attack.

Damn it, he really did need to tag the man. He was too fast for any of GV's normal attacks to hit.

Finally there was only one member of the unknown group left. A guy with big hair and a wavy sword. The man waved his hands and the floor seemed to rip into the air but once again Acqua batted the attack away. He then flowed right next to the man and in one moment grabbed something from his neck while knocking him skywards with the pommel of his mace.

GV didn't allow the chance to be lost though. As Acqua was distracted with the group's last member, GV struck forward. He had a knife, prepared with a lock of his hair wrapped around the blade. As long as this broke Acqua's skin then he'd be caught!

It didn't break Acqua's skin. Instead Acqua spun and blocked the pefectly placed knife with an arm and deflecting it away easily. He was strong, though that should have been obvious by his choice of weapon.

GV dropped low as the knife was knocked away and swung a quick kick into Acqua's legs. He didn't fall back on martial arts that much but he had a tiny opening here. The kick connected but instead of breaking Acqua's balance, GV just shuddered. It was like kicking metal. Misaka might be able to do that without hurting herself (At least when it came to drink machines) but in this case it really hurt.

As GV fell back to try and get his power to repair any damage that kick had done to him, Acqua began to talk.

"You would have been able to go home safely Esper. I'm not here for you today, nor your kind in general. You may still leave if you want. But if you want to protect the boy who holds imagine breaker, I'm afraid I'll need to hurt you."

Grimacing, GV drew another knife "If you're after Touma, I'll stand in your way. I still owe him one after all."

Acqua sighed and then flowed, quicker than GV had seen him move so far, right at him.

Jitt.

GV didn't form a dragonsphere, doing so would disrupt his ability to prevade due to electrical field interference. It was the same reason he couldn't prevade while unleashing his azure lightning.

As the man swung his mace, he said something that GV didn't understand.

"M, S;"

GV was able to prevade through the mace again and the man snorted as he reappeared none the worse for the attack and preparing to counterattack again. Acqua flowed back and admitted.

"Your ability, you're not a teleporter but you have a way of altering your body to ensure you can't be touched. I see."

"And you're a mage." GV noted "A strong one. I assume these people-" he gestured at the groaning figures on the floor "-were mages too? And you dealt with all of them."

Acqua nodded "They didn't need to come, I gave them explicit warning, they didn't listen though."

Then they had probably been with Itsuwa, more people to help protect Touma.

This was trouble. GV had to admit that it seemed Acqua was stronger and faster than just about anyone he'd fought since coming to academy city. It was greater even than the boost that Houjou Seigo's Black Tuxedo. GV would have thought that impossible given the situation as his opponent wasn't even using any obvious magic to make himself stronger. He just was insanely strong.

What would it take for GV to hurt him?

A skill right to the face properly. His skills allowed him to hurt even the supposedly invincible Accelerator. GV still wasn't totally sure of why but it was a fact nonetheless.

Of course, to use a skill risked leaving him unable to prevade an attack. If he did this, he'd be putting himself at quite the risk.

He could draw out Luxcalibur? His lightning sword against the man's mace, GV had no doubt his weapon would win in that case. Even so, it would still leave him open while he drew and used it. If Acqua attacked during that time, he'd have no way to stop it.

No, Dragonsphere was his best bet. It's near instant activation would work, he just needed to feint out an attack first to ensure Acqua's reactions weren't fast enough.

As Acqua moved in, GV prevaded through his mace's swing. If GV tried to dodge around behind him, he'd probably just flow away in that strange way of his. No, GV dashed in and got right up in Acqua's face.

"Take this! Dragonsphere!"

He was too close for Acqua to swing his mace properly. Right now, Acqua had a handful of options, all of them bad. If he waited, he'd get hit by the Dragonsphere. If he let go of the mace to strike at GV with his bare hands, it wouldn't do as much damage as the mace. If he flowed away, GV could just move in and force him into the same spot again.

This was it, GV had his opening!

Acqua exploded.

No, that wasn't right. Acqua hadn't exploded.

GV had been sent flying back by [something that he hadn't observed]. Acqua had hit him, faster than GV could see coming. He'd done one of the things GV had guessed and let go of his mace to punch GV but at a speed that no one could match. It wasn't the kind of reactions a human could have.

The fist had slammed into the center of GV's mass in the moment he couldn't prevade and had thrown him back bodily.

GV collided with the bridge's railings and collapsed. His power was already acting to accelerate his healing, but it wasn't fast enough.

Acqua stepped over. There was a soft light shimmering from his body. the light was quickly fading but GV swore he wasn't just seeing things.

"Esper, two things to think about. First is the mistake you made. You assumed you'd seen everything I could do and left yourself open."

Partially right at least, GV had thought he would have been able to react in time if Acqua had tried that. His reactions were literally faster than lightning and yet it apeared that Acqua was faster still.

Before Acqua continued, he went to grab his mace. It didn't look like he intended to finish GV, or even any of the mages, off. It was just as if he'd dropped something carelessly and had needed to go pick it back up.

"The second thing is this: That favour you mentioned? I assume he helped you or something like that. Well, you gave it your best shot to save him. You have returned the favour. Go home. You're no longer part of this."

With that, Acqua bent over to pick up something else that he'd dropped. That thing he'd grabbed from the man earlier. Without another word he left and GV continued to stew in his thoughts.

GV just chuckled as he lay there. That was twice now a mage had defeated him so easily. The first obviously being that strange mage with the spell that stole the air from his body.

Well, there wouldn't be a third time. GV struggled to his feet.

Acqua thought his favour was complete after a failure? No. GV wouldn't allow that.

He looked around at the others who were begining to stagger. He hadn't killed any of them.

There was something Acqua didn't know after all. That had only been a tiny fraction of GV's abilities. Next time, he'd be facing GV's true skills too.

End of chapter.

This is the second version of this chapter. Something felt wrong after I wrote the first version so I asked for people to give feedback to figure out what the problem was. This is the "fixed" version.

You might see (if you saw the original version) that the begining and end are very similar, GV even ended up thinking the same last few lines. That's because I didn't want to alter too much. Just enough that the nagging feeling that something was wrong would go.

Specifically, I didn't like that GV just underestimated Acqua in the original. This time he gets his attack knocked away harmlessly and looks at the situation again to try and find a way to win and the way he selects just isn't good enough.

Also, this chapter is slightly longer than the previous version so... yay?