Eruption - path_diverge
Both girls charged as one. Neither needed to be close to attack, so it was foolishness to approach. But neither of the pair were sparing much thoughts on strategy – their hind-brains were in full control here, so they were running to punching range even as they planed to blast him.
Kuroko was the first one to attack, nails disappearing from her hands just as suddenly as they had appeared. She screamed, and it took Twilight a moment to realise that it was in pain instead of fury. She glanced over at the other girl: her nails hadn’t embedded themselves in the boy, but had instead reappeared near Kuroko’s own hands. The Judgement member stared at her hands, and the two nails sticking out of them, even as the rest of the nails clattered to the floor.
“Oh, nice.” Twilight listened to the boy distractedly, her attention split between him, Kuroko and her own attack. “That vector was drawn in 10… no, 11 dimensions, wasn’t it? I haven't done one of those in a while, so you’ll have to forgive me if I wasn’t able to reflect it perfectly.”
Twilight loosed the beam spell she’d been charging up, a purple lance of energy erupting from her hands and slamming into the boy… only somehow, Twilight was the one who went flying instead.
“Now, that? That’s more what I’m used to.” The boy grinned, then frowned and raised an eyebrow. “Though, what the **** did you have mixed in there? Half the force went missing when I turned it around.”
He took a step forward, a foot coming down on the left half of 9748’s bloody chest with a meaty crunch. “Whatever. So what exactly did you want to say to me, again?”
Kuroko screamed again as she teleported the nails out from where they were embedded in her hands; the girl herself disappearing a second later. Though her vision was swimming slightly, Twilight spotted her reappear on the far side of the warehouse, grabbing something Twilight couldn’t make out. She tossed it at the back of the boy’s head.
It hit almost perfectly on target, but instead of knocking him over it suddenly flew back the way it came: faster than it had come the first time. Kuroko teleported out before she could be taken out by her own projectile. The boy took another step to Twilight, not seeming to have noticed the attack at all.
Twilight managed to focus enough to start another spell, a purple glow encasing both her hands and her target. The boy actually showed some surprise at this, and Twilight grinned savagely as she pulled her hand down.
Only, rather than the boy being pulled to the ground, she found herself flung upwards. Momentarily weightless, she clearly felt it when Kuroko grabbed her and teleported the pair of them safely to the ground.
“The **** is that? Some kind of energy Ability that can also be used for telekinesis?” The boy clicked his tongue. “You’re not just making it up like that pain-in-the-*** #2, are you?”
He crossed his arms. “Here’s a tip. What’s the reflection of you pushing me down? Answer: me pushing you up. It doesn’t matter through what weird other-space you have to draw the vector in. You honestly think nobody’s tried ****ing telekinesis on me before?”
A few minutes ago
It should probably be mentioned that Misaka had not intended to take the hit for 9748.
Though in fairness, things had proceeded too fast for her to properly consider that option.
When 9748 had wrenched herself from her grasp, all Misaka had had time to think was I have to catch her!
It was only now, as she zoomed across the sky as a ball of magic, that Misaka could properly consider whether she was… whether she had been… willing to give her life for a clone hadn’t known existed until today and had spent less that ten minutes in the company of.
She definitely didn’t want to die. She had no desire to inflict that kind of pain on her parents or her friends. And her dreams for the future could hardly be fulfilled if she hit 0 HP while still in the tutorial level.
But… she didn’t want the clone to die either…
Had one been worth sacrificing the other for? If not, what would be?
It’s probably a moot point now.
Her involuntary flight had already carried her out of the town limits, and she was now soaring over the Everfree Forest. The firm pull that had been active on her ever since getting hit with the spell was getting stronger and stronger, and Misaka knew that she wasn’t far from her destination, whatever that was.
Abruptly, the purple ball of energy that was Misaka made a sharp turn downwards into a hole in the ground about the size of a hay cart. The soft light that she gave off reflected off of the smooth walls of the tunnel as both she and it twisted around, heading on a meandering path underground.
The tunnel eventually opened up into a vast cavern, the bulk of which was occupied by stalagmites and various fungus. In the centre of the cavern was a small pool of water, fed by a tiny stream no wider than a pony hoof. With no wind or currents to disturb it, the surface of the water was mirror-smooth, and Misaka caught a brief glimpse of herself as she plunged down –
– just in time to see a million cracks suddenly appear in the mirror-like surface, and the entire pool shatter, leaving an empty space behind.
Misaka’s form hovered in place for a moment, the banishment spell just as confused as Misaka herself was.
After a few seconds, something touched her form, and Misaka the ball of magic exploded, leaving Misaka the perplexed pegasus behind.
Too stunned to fly, she dropped down into the shallow depression formerly occupied by the Mirror Pool, staring upwards at Index and Touma, who were standing just to the side of where the pool had been.
Misaka blinked slowly. <What just happened?>
<He broke it.> Index deadpanned.
<…why are you making it sound like a bad thing?> Touma protested.
The idiot can break magic? That… would explain a couple of things, I guess.
Touma scratched the back of his head with the same right forehoof that had just destroyed two enchantments. <Um, are you the original Bug Zapper, or…?>
<She’s the original.> Index huffed before Misaka could reply. <What did you do to get banished into the Pool, Short Hair?>
For a moment, Misaka just looked up at the other two ponies. The suddenness of the banishment spell and her subsequent rescue meant that her head was still spinning a little, her brain half-expecting for the rug to be pulled out from under her any second now. <I didn’t.> She managed, eventually beginning to get to her hooves. <Sparkle suddenly went off the deep end. She seemed to think getting rid of my clone would somehow…>
She trailed off. Come to think of it, that had been her plan first, hadn’t it? Not to hit her clone with some weird spell to banish her for all time or anything, but to get her away from her friends before they could get hurt.
Had that been what Twilight had been thinking? That the clone was dangerous and best gotten rid of quickly? If so, what right did she have to criticise her, when she had attempted it first?
Index wasn’t privy to Misaka’s internal revelation, but she seemed to derive some meaning from her silence. <And she hit you with the spell by mistake?>
<Pretty much.> Misaka said, not really feeling like going into detail.
Touma’s gaze swivelled back and forth between the two girls as they talked, feeling out of the loop. <So, um… we don’t have to worry about that spell anymore now, right?>
<No. Without a valid destination, the banishment spell will fail at the very first stage.>
<Good.> Misaka cricked her neck and wings, a determined look on her face. <I think I owe Sparkle a solid buck in the hindquarters.>
<Before we leave though, we should probably do something about them.> Touma said, gesturing behind Misaka.
She blinked. <Them?> She turned around.
A group of people of assorted species had been sitting behind her in stunned silence. One or two members of each pony tribe, a handful of dragons, a zebra and other creatures that Misaka didn’t know the names for. Then stood, mouths agape, staring around the cavern like they couldn’t believe their eyes. The two that were wearing clothing were out of fashion by about four centuries.
A pretty earth pony mare stepped forward out of the group. “Art thou another added to this group of tortured souls?”
Oh.
OH.
Misaka figured she had better snip this in the bud, and reared up, waving her forehooves back and forth. “N-no no no! The spell on this place is gone, you can all leave now!”
The assorted peoples stared back in stunned silence. “Thou… thou hast broken the curse?” The pretty mare whispered.
Without thinking, Misaka indicated Touma with a wing. “Well, technically he did, but –”
With a wail, the pretty mare leapt forward, rather impressively clearing the entire distance from her to Touma in one massive glomp, hugging him tight as she sobbed into his fur.
“HEY!”
Neither Misaka nor Index would be able to explain later why this made them so mad.
Back in the present
“Oh, this is rich. You don’t actually know who I am, do you?” The boy said, raising an eyebrow.
Twilight raised a forcefield between the boy and herself. The boy examined the forcefield with a slightly bored expression, and pressed a finger onto it. Unlike the previous times, Twilight actually felt the moment control over her spell was contested, but still wasn’t able to do anything about it. The forcefield swung back towards her like a giant cat-flap to hit her in the chest, throwing her backward.
As she tumbled backwards, she could just barely hear Kuroko start to speak in Japanese. <This is Shirai Kuroko of Judgement’s 3rd branch! I have witnessed an esper of Level 4 or higher commit murder in cold blood! I need –> Twilight looked up to see Kuroko suddenly take off her earpiece-phone and glare at it “– dammit, it’s jammed?!”
Twilight assumed the switch to English was for her benefit, but she wished Kuroko hadn’t done that. She didn’t want to know that there was someone stopping them from calling for help.
She flinched as the boy flicked something at Kuroko at impossible speeds, and the teleporter screamed as her phone was smashed to pieces, along with the finger that had been in the way.
“Oi oi oi, it’s a little harsh to be calling me a murderer, isn’t it?” The boy said, sounding only mildly offended. “All I did was smash up a wind-up doll, after all.”
Twilight’s eyes went wide, but Kuroko’s jaw clenched in pure rage. She growled at the boy, but did not attack.
Perhaps she couldn’t think of how she could.
“You won’t get away with this.” Kuroko swore.
“For what? For doing my homework?” The boy responded casually. “Newsflash, whoever-you-are – I’m not going to get in trouble for doing this. You’re going to get in trouble for trying to stop me.”
He paused. “Come to think of it, this whole project is supposed to be a secret, isn’t it? Those stupid adults probably want to make sure you don’t go blabbing.” He gave a smile that promised nothing but pain and insanity. “I wonder if silencing you will get me some extra credit?”
“…you’re lying.” Kuroko said, but Twilight could hear the first hints of doubt in her voice.
The boy rolled his eyes, the smile vanishing. “Give me a break. What, you really think I made this piece of trash on my own?”
He lightly kicked one half of 9748’s head with the back of a foot. It burst like a water balloon, spraying blood, brains, and fragments of bone all over the wall behind him like a painting on the world’s most violent canvas.
Kuroko gasped and Twilight had to swallow one of her own.
It’s like he doesn’t see her as human.
Twilight blinked, turning that thought over in her head.
…she was human?
Twilight recalled the look of fear that 9748 had shown just before her death. That… that was not the face of an emotionless drone, a mistake of magic. That was someone who had fears, who wanted her…
Twilight swallowed, even as the boy advanced on them further, Kuroko hissing at her side. She didn’t seem to be able to work up the concentration to teleport with the pain she was in.
…who had wanted her friends to be safe.
Twilight couldn’t hold in the gasp this time, a though occurring to her that was so painful it felt like she had been punched in the chest.
…he doesn’t see the clones as people.
…just like I didn’t.
A few minutes ago
<…and so we brought them back here.> Touma finished explaining. <Do you think you can help them get orientated to this century?>
Time Turner rubbed his chin. <I mean, certainly, but I’m not sure why you’re asking me for help.>
<What are you talking about? You told me to come to you for any time-related problems.>
<I did?> Time Turner’s eyes lit up. <Fascinating!>
While Touma was handing off those who had been stuck in the Mirror Pool, Index and Misaka were talking to an earth pony with pink fur and a Cutie Mark of three flowers.
“…and I came galloping, obviously, but by the time I made it back here both you and your sister were gone!” The mare babbled.
“That’s weird.” Index said. “Why would Sparkle run off like that? Did your friends chase her off?”
She turned around to find Misaka staring off into space, mouthing the word ‘sister’.
“Hello? Short Hair?”
Index waved a hoof in front of Misaka, who snapped out of her funk. “Huh? Wuh?”
“Focus, Short Hair.” Index chided. “Sparkle isn’t going to be banishing anypony else, but something still feels off to me. I don’t think we’ve resolved everything yet.”
Misaka raised an eyebrow. “Uh, no duh? For one thing, we still don’t know why somepony was making cl– er…” she glanced at the pink mare, and changed track with a slight flush on her muzzle “…well, why somepony started this whole mess.”
The pink mare tilted her head in confusion, before her eyes suddenly widened and she straightened up. “Oh, um, miss Short Hair?”
“That’s not my name!” Misaka snapped.
“Oh…” The pink mare said, taken aback, her eyes flickering between Misaka and something behind her. “Well, it’s just… your sister is back?”
Index and Misaka (and Touma, who was now trotting back over to rejoin the group) turned around to find another Misaka clone standing behind them, off to one side of the town square.
“Oh, you’re okay!” Misaka perked up, trotting over. “I was worried for a minute there that Sparkle might have tried something even more drastic after what happened –”
<I am not the Railgun unit you met before, Railgun interrupts.>
Misaka halted, taken aback. <Eh?>
<The Railgun you saved was Railgun unit 9748, Railgun informs. This unit’s serial number is 10032.> The clone paused. <It is nice to meet you, big sister, Railgun says politely. I am glad to see you are alright.>
<Um, nice to meet you too?> Misaka fumbled.
Touma raised a hoof. <Um, so, if you’re here, then that other Railgun – 9748 –>
<She has been obsoleted for the investigation of this anomalous space, and was reassigned back to her original duty, Railgun explains.>
The pink mare, realising that the new ponies wouldn’t be talking in Equish again anytime soon, backed off nervously and busied herself talking to somepony else.
<Her ‘original duty’?> Index repeated. <What would that be, exactly?>
<97D8E40EC0D3E581256… Railgun requests a –>
<We get it, we get it.> Misaka interrupted, ignoring Index and Touma who most certainly did not get it. <Is there anything you can tell us?>
For just a moment, a flicker of something seemed to pass over the normally emotionless face of 10032. <…9748’s broadcast just ended.>
A chill passed through the three humans-turned-ponies listening. <Wait.> Index said, slowly. <When you say ‘ended’…>
<Cross-context communications are still in the alpha stage of development, and mistranslations are common, but… Railgun trails off, as Railgun noticeably hesitates. Railgun is fairly certain that Twilight Sparkle and big sister’s friend Stagehand were present.>
<Cross-context… they’re on the other side of the portal?> Index guessed.
<Wait, what’s with that nervous pause? Please tell me nopony raised a bad-end flag…> Touma grumbled.
Misaka, for her part, exploded into fury, her fur coat going zap-zap-zap as lighting bolts rose to the surface and rubbed against each other. <Oh, for – she’s still at it?!> She ground out.
She turned around, not seeing the hint of worry crawl its way into 10032’s expression. <Come on!> She urged the other two, galloping away.
Back in the present
“So, here’s the thing.”
The boy bent over and picked up Twilight by the neck. Panicking, she tried to pry his hands off, but somehow that only seemed to increase the force on her throat.
“By now, you’ve surely figure out that my power only works on things I’m touching, right? Well right now, I’m touching you. I could manipulate all sorts of interesting things here. Maybe I could make your blood flow backwards? Or maybe I could randomise the flow of bio-electricity between your neurons and fry your brain, that sounds fun.”
The boy glanced behind himself with a smirk, looking at Kuroko with the corner of one eye. “Of course, your teleporter buddy could get over here and try to teleport you out of my grasp… she’d have to be very careful, though. Otherwise, she might send you into a wall or the floor after I reflect your outgoing teleport.” He let out cruel laugh, before abruptly spinning around and throwing Twilight into Kuroko. The two girls hit the side of the warehouse with a clang, their existing injuries flaring up in pain as they cried out.
Burning fury was the only force allowing Kuroko to even think through her pain at the moment, but Twilight didn’t have that. All her rage had drained out of her with her epiphany.
Is this what Misaka and her clone felt like when I was chasing after them?
At the time, the idea would have seen ludicrous. The clone couldn’t feel anything, and Misaka was interfering only to be contrary.
Or so her sleep-deprived –
…no, no excuses. So her frustrated mind had believed.
No, you mustn’t be here…!
But that clone could most certainly feel things, and Twilight just hadn’t seen it.
The boy began tapping his foot against the ground. “Well?”
...huh? Well what?
“Why are you still here? You honestly don’t think you can beat me, do you? You’re boring to play with, so if you run away now I promise not to chase you.”
Twilight felt Kuroko place a hand on her shoulder and use her as a handhold to push herself to her feet. The slight girl growled, apparently beyond words, as she pulled another nail out from its sheath.
The boy gave a disappointed sigh. “You’ve chosen to die? Really? For what?”
“I… won’t let you… hurt… anyone else…” Kuroko panted, roughly pulling Twilight to her feet. “Doesn’t… matter… who…”
The boy laughed again. “It’s not like you’re going to get a gravestone, but man, what a stupid thing to have on it!” In the blink of an eye, the boy had dashed across the several meters separating them to grab Kuroko by the throat. “‘Nameless Judgement Girl: Died trying to avenge a body pillow.’”
Something clicked in Twilight’s brain, and she fired a beam spell at the ground between Kuroko and the boy. The concrete exploded, blasting the two apart. Kuroko cried out as several shards of concrete pierced her legs, but the boy just allowed himself to be pushed backwards, completely unharmed.
“Indirect attacks won’t hurt me either, you know.” The boy said, maniac grin still in place.
“Don’t need to hurt you.” Twilight gasped, swaying a little despite her attempts to steady her stance. “Sealing you away will do just fine.”
“Aren’t you a little too American to be a shrine maiden? (Come to think of it, you might be the first American esper I’ve seen… eh, whatever).”
Twilight knew the boy was joking, but unfortunately that didn’t stop him from being right. Nightmare Moon had made it abundantly clear that she needed to learn some proper sealing spells, but all she’d spent her time on was fruitless searching for answers about a hole in the ground.
Still, if there was one thing she’d learned from her and her brother’s D&D obsession, it was this: when the wizard was fighting something immune to magic, it was time to shove them down a pit and start dropping things on them.
“Kuroko, get out of here.” Twilight clenched her teeth. Kuroko spared her a worried glance, one hand massaging her throat, but for whatever reason obeyed – vanishing silently.
Twilight grunted, her hands flaring purple as she reached out, ‘feeling’ the warehouse around her. Suddenly, the whole room began to flare with the light of Twilight’s magic, her Telekinetic grasp around the very walls themselves.
The boy raised an eyebrow, completely unconcerned. “What’s with the light-show? Are you trying to sparkle me to death?” He dashed forward, exactly as he had against Kuroko. “Guess we’ll never find out –!”
The boy zoomed forward so fast that Twilight was only able to react because she had been waiting for it. Because the whole room had been lit up in purple, it had been impossible to the boy to notice the identical purple aura around him as well. As he zoomed towards her now, she pulled him towards her and slightly to the left. The boy’s power reflected the force, naturally, but that just sent Twilight flying forward and to the right, letting her dodge the charge.
The boy grunted in surprise and frustration, but the damage was done. For a few blessed seconds, the boy was preoccupied with turning around and lining up another charge. This gave Twilight the time she needed to focus completely on the structure of the warehouse…
…and crush it.
Meanwhile, Kuroko was gasping in pain just outside the warehouse, running as fast as she could manage. Teleportation was much faster, but that relied on 13-dimensional vector transformations being done in her head – it wasn’t something she could concentrate on with the pain from her injured hands. Frankly, it was nothing short of a miracle that she’d been able to teleport out of the warehouse at all. The shock of Sparkle stupidly trying to take the boy on on her own must have cleared her head for a second.
If she’d only had her phone, she would have tried calling for help again. But it was destroyed, and Sparkle had asked her to leave her behind with a murderer.
That thought left several uncomfortable feelings in Kuroko’s chest. Horror that someone who looked just like her Sissy had been viciously murdered right before her. Shame that she hadn’t been able to do anything about it. Concern for Sparkle’s welfare, even though she’d been furious with the girl, and further shame that she had abandoned her.
Wild panic at the thought that if Sparkle died, she’d have lost all leads as to how to get Sissy back.
Out of breath, Kuroko was forced to slow her pace to barely more than a walk, gasping both in pain and for air. Her vision started to swim as the world seemed to shift under her feet.
I’m going into shock, she realised.
She tried to take another step, but the ground seemed to move from under her foot as she tried to put her weight on it. The fact that her chin hitting the ground barely seemed to register in her mind was probably a bad sign. Everything just felt so numb…
<–oko? Can you hear me? Koroko –!>
Oh good, Sissy was here. If she could save Sparkle, then they could all go save Sissy together.
<You have to save her, Sissy…> She heard herself say.
<I know, Kuroko. I’ll save the clone, no matter what!>
<No…> She managed two more words as her vision went dark. <Save… Sparkle…>
“Huff, puff.”
Twilight’s breathing was laboured as she looked upon what she had wrought. The warehouse had collapsed from a double-story block-occupying building to a pile of rubble about the size of her bedroom. She had left the section of wall behind her alone, so the rubble hadn’t touched her; but of the boy she had attacked there was no sign.
As she gulped down precious oxygen, she continued to stare at the unmoving pile of rubble.
She hadn’t just… killed someone, had she? She didn’t even know why they were fighting, not properly. Who had that boy been? Why had he been killing the clone? He seemed to know that they were ‘made’…
Wait. The thought occurred to Twilight. What if… the clones were being made on this side…?
“Well, it’s more creative then most, I’ll give you that much.”
Purely on reflex, Twilight raised up a forcefield to shield herself, but it shattered as the pile of rubble exploded outwards with even more force then had been used to create it. She went flying through the air, something in her chest making a worrying “crunch” noise as she slammed into the ground.
“I mean, sure, ‘shrink’ is a scalar movement, not a vector one.” The boy commented, walking forwards with his hands in his pockets. ‘Changing size’ only had a magnitude associated with it, not a direction. You couldn’t ‘shrink left’. “But crushing a building and shrinking it are hardly the same things, are they? You broke the building up into pieces, each of which had its own vector of ‘inward’, and the reflection of that is obvious. But hey, that’s still closer to beating me than anyone else had come. I’ll actually have to give some thought after this as to how to fight a size-changing Ability. Those are a thing, right? Probably.”
Twilight reached out a hand – what for, she didn’t know – but the boy stomped on it hard, and Twilight hissed at the fresh rush of pain. She looked up to find the boy staring down at her, his face unreadable. He reached down with his hand…
BOOM
…and an orange line traced itself between Twilight and the boy with enough force to blow a bank vault door off its hinges. The boy was unmoved, his power even protecting his eyes from the bright flash; but it was enough of a surprise to make him lean back, allowing the shockwave to throw Twilight out of his reach. Her ears ringing, Twilight was only barely aware of someone grabbing her shoulders and dragging her backwards.
She blinked furiously, her hearing returning before her vision:
“– decided to join in?” The boy was saying.
“I don’t know what you’ve got against Sparkle, but I’d be a massive hypocrite if I allowed you to kill her when I’m here to save someone!”
“Save someone? What the hell, you things have a life outside of throwing yourselves at me?”
“…what…?”
“…wait. What’s with that dumb look on your face? And that way of speaking… ooooohhhh, I get it! You’re the real one!”
Twilight blinked a few more times, and the impossible scene started to come into focus. Misaka – the original one, somehow – already had another coin held between her thumb and index finger, arm aimed right at the boy with the reflection power. The boy with the anti-magic fist (had she ever gotten his name?) stood next to Misaka, arms raised into an amateur fighting pose. He and Misaka looked about as lost as Twilight felt.
<Uiharu, who is this guy?> Misaka asked, eyes narrowing.
Another voice spoke up from behind her, and Twilight rolled her head back to see Applejack, Pinkie Pie, Index, and the two girls who had arrived through the anomaly with Kuroko earlier standing behind her. The one with flowers in her hair was rapidly pressing buttons on a portable game console, and the other one had Kuroko slung over her shoulder.
Applejack had her arms hooked under her shoulders, evidently having dragged her back out of harm’s way. This was becoming a trend.
<A-according to the Bank, h-he’s…>
<Yeah?>
<…he’s the #1. Accelerator.>
Misaka’s eyes widened. <What?>
<You really don’t know what’s going on here, do you?> Accelerator drawled. <I always thought that you were heartless, donating your DNA to use for this experiment. Turns out you’re just a moron instead!> He began to clap sarcastically. <My bad!>
<Donating…? Wait, you mean from back then…?!> Judging from the shock in Misaka’s eyes, she had just figured something out, though Twilight had no idea what. Given Applejack’s sharp inhale behind her, it must have been something important.
“Now, here’s the thing.” Accelerator said, returning to English and spreading his arms wide. “I have spent the past couple of years slaughtering copies of you pretty much every day. Sure, their specs are lower, but that’s not going to be enough. Killing you won’t be hard – it’ll be routine.”
Touma’s ability to speak English was so bad that his teacher had once told him never to try to speak it again for the sake of world peace. However, for some reason he could remember the English word for “Kill”.
The rest he could figure out from the maniac grin on Accelerator’s face.
He charged forward with a roar, ignoring Pinkie’s cry of “No!”
Accelerator lightly kicked a loose piece of rubble with the tip of his foot. It shot into Touma’s abdomen with the force of a cannonball, blasting him off his feet and knocking the wind out of him. Twilight thought she could see a couple drops of blood flying through the air before he slammed into the ground, not having made it two meters/yards.
“And the rest of your little friends? Not even a challenge.” Accelerator continued, as though he hadn’t been interrupted. “So how about we just call it quits here? To be honest, this is more boring for me than anything else.”
That’s the second time he’s offered that. Twilight noticed. To just let us run away.
Come to think of it, he’d threatened to kill them plenty of times, but never seriously tried to do so – even when he quite literally had her by the throat. And the way get kept switching back and forth between bloodthirsty mania and nonchalance – either he was suffering from severe mood swings, or…
It’s an act. She realised. He actually doesn’t want to kill us. He wants us to leave.
But why? Why did their lives have value in his eyes, and not the clone’s? Wait, she already knew the answer to this one.
He knows we’re real people, but he doesn’t think the clones are.
Twilight didn’t know why Accelerator was killing them. She didn’t know how the clones of Misaka were being made or why. But one thing was abundantly clear to her now.
She knew what had to happen to finish this.
She opened her mouth to talk – and was interrupted when Applejack suddenly dropped her. Before she could do more than wince in pain, she saw said farm-girl leaping bodily over her, Pinkie right behind her.
She screamed a wordless warning, but it was too late. Pinkie pulled something that looked like a flare gun from a jacket pocket, levelled it and fired. Having met Pinkie, Twilight wasn’t surprised to see streamers and confetti shoot out of the end of her ‘party cannon’. They reflected off of Accelerator, of course, but they had lost most of their momentum before reaching him. They ended up floating in front of his face, obscuring his view.
That was enough of an opening for Applejack to get her lasso over his body and pull hard. The rope tightened, and for a moment it looked like it might hold, but then Applejack was pulled forward with enough force to send her soaring through the air, landing roughly behind Accelerator.
“Oi.” Accelerator spat, clearly frustrated. “Just because the rope’s vector runs around me rather than into me doesn’t mean I can’t reflect it. In fact, I added a little extra, just for you. Happy now?”
“There’s got to be a limit to your power!” Misaka roared, black clouds of Iron Sand emerging out of the ground all around the group. “Like the number of objects you can reflect!”
The clouds of Iron Sand all rushed towards Accelerator at once, each grain moving at slightly different speeds and directions so that they each made contact with his body at once.
“Maybe so, but it’s way more than you can send, third-string!” Accelerator laughed. The Iron Sand, contrary to Twilight’s expectation, did not bounce off his skin. Instead, each grain rolled over his skin and clothes to gather together into a ball of iron in his right hand. Judging from Misaka’s face, she was fighting his control over the iron, but just like he had with Twilight’s force-fields earlier, his Ability trumped theirs.
By the end of it, Accelerator had ended up with a ball of compressed iron filings about the size of a large marble. “How’d you introduce yourself again?” He asked, his mad grin coming back full force. “Wasn’t it like this?” He flicked the ball of filings up with a thumb, and aimed his arm at Misaka.
Pinkie’s desperate lunge at Accelerator was reflected completely, the poor girl sent flying like so many others tonight.
He didn’t seem to notice the ultra-high-pitched concentration-disrupting tone Uiharu desperately played at max volume from her hacked console.
With his other hand he easily batted away Applejack’s attempt to obscure his vision with her hat, sending her soaring as well.
Saten wasn’t able to do more then cry out in despair, and Kuroko could not be roused, even for this.
But by telekinetically pulling on Accelerator, Twilight was able to launch herself in-between Misaka and Accelerator just in time for the iron ball to land back on Accelerator’s hand.
The orange glowing line of plasma of a railgun traced itself across the room faster than the human mind could process, and the boom that followed after it was just as loud as it always had been. Usually, however, that line was traced from Misaka, not to her.
Twilight coughed roughly, the air having been roughly forced out from her lungs with yet another blow to the gut. She’d tried to deflect the railgun shot by forming her forcefield at an angle, but it hadn’t been enough and the shot had barely changed direction as it blasted through.
Indeed, if Index hadn’t also been jumping in the way and blocked the shot with the sleeve of her Walking Church, she would probably be missing a good chunk of her torso right now. Even so, the sheer force of the shot had created a shockwave more than capable of blowing the three girls off their feet.
Everything hurt, but it was especially bad when Index pushed off of her to try and stand up, making Twilight gasp. “I don’t recognise any of the symbols he’s using.” Index whispered, either ignoring or oblivious to Twilight’s pain.
Twilight had to bite her bottom lip just to endure the pain that came with rolling off Misaka. “That’s because he’s an esper, not a magician.” She whispered back, feeling silly for needing to explain this to Index Librorum Prohibitorum of all people. “He’s not using magic.”
Index didn’t look convinced, but Twilight didn’t have any time to continue the discussion. She turned to Misaka instead. “You’re the only one who can stop him now!”
Out of the corner of her eye Twilight could see Pinkie reload her ‘party cannon’, jump to her feet, and make another charge at Accelerator. This time, glitter shot out when she pulled the trigger. Accelerator took a page out of the man of tomorrow’s book and blew both girl and glitter back with a vector-boosted super-breath. Being covered in glitter didn’t seem to bother Pinkie any, but tears were running down her face anyway. Twilight wondered what had triggered that until she turned to get a better look, and noticed Pinkie’s eyes flicker to a piece of rub–
– oh god that wasn’t rubble, that was half of a leg.
“If you know something I don’t, spit it out!” Misaka hissed, standing to her own feet unsteadily.
“When I –” the words caught in her throat, and the sight of Applejack getting tossed across the room after trying to drop onto Accelerator from above was not helping her spit them out “– when I attacked you and the clone –”
“I remember.” Misaka growled, her tone saying ‘hurry up’ perfectly well.
“You attacked her as well, right?” Twilight didn’t wait for an answer. “But you stopped before I got there.” She swallowed. “I think you realised the same thing I did. What that boy still hasn’t.”
Misaka stared at Twilight, her face unreadable.
Cries of pain drew all three girl’s attention around to Accelerator fully once again. He was dusting his hands off, the crumpled forms of Applejack and Pinkie being dragged off by Saten and Uiharu. Both of the American girls appeared to be unconscious.
This wasn’t a comic book. Forcibly rendering someone unconscious usually involved head trauma, something that definitely couldn’t just be slept off, even as tough as the girls were. They needed urgent medical attention, now.
“Whatever you’re talking about there, it doesn’t sound like you’re giving up.” Accelerator said. “Haven’t you gotten it through your stupid heads?! You can’t beat me. The only reason I’m even the same level as you on paper is because the whole idea of SYSTEM is bull****, otherwise I’d already be the one and only Level 6!”
He stomped one foot forward, and the ground underneath them erupted upward. If they hadn’t been expecting something like it, it would probably have taken them out of the fight. As it was, Misaka and Twilight were forced to dodge using magnetism and Accelerator-anchored telekinesis. Index had no equivalent dodging ability, but she didn’t need it – the stone thrust broke against her Walking Church like a wave against a shore.
“You idiots keep fighting me over and over again! I break your limbs, prove I’m not playing around, but already I can see that ****ing light of defiance in your eyes!” Accelerator leapt into the air, arms outstretched for Misaka. “If killing you is the only way you’ll ****ing stop, then you’re going to ****ing die!”
“Just another dead Misaka, Misaka asks with vitriol?”
“Eh?” Confusion spread across Accelerator’s descending face. When Misaka side-stepped his attack, he made no move to correct his trajectory, just landing on the ground in a crouch.
“The Misaka here had a serial number of 9748… how many thousands of Misaka’s sisters have you murdered, Misaka wonders with disgust?”
“H-have you somehow connected to the Network…? No, wait, if you had then you’d know what’s going on!”
“Have any of them ever asked you not to do it, Misaka wonders? Looked into your eyes and said ‘Let Misaka live, Misaka pleas’? Or do they always just lie down and tell you it’s alright, Misaka demands to know?!”
Accelerator knew full well that the girl standing before him was the #3, Misaka Mikoto, and not one of the Sisters that had been cloned from her.
However.
For years now, he had been seeing that exact face, that exact uniform even. He had crushed, burned, electrocuted, reflected bullets into and otherwise killed so many like her that the deaths had long since blurred together in his head.
Never once had they shown any sense of self preservation. They had never complained, never shown any signs of hurting. Only wind-up dolls did that!
But a Misaka standing there, accusing him with their face, with their voice…! Like she had any ****ing right to blame him!
A realisation was building in his head. One he had wondered about ever since that first experiment, years ago. He’d pushed it to the back of his head, trying hard not to think about it. Dreaming of a day when he would be so powerful that people would quit attacking him, just to try and unseat him from the #1 spot.
“Dammit, don’t act like you’re innocent in all this! None of this would have happened if you hadn’t given up your DNA map, so don’t act like you’re blameless in all this!”
That great unspeakable thought was rising up in his mind.
He just needed one final push.
“You’ve gotten all defensive, Misaka notices. Is that because you can’t stand the thought that all the lives you’ve snuffed out might actually be those of real–”
Accelerator stood up fully with a roar, murder in his eyes. He thrust out a hand at Misaka, and she knew there would be no evading this one. She’d broken the mental barriers he’d been deluding himself with, and was now lashing out with guilt and rage.
This was where she ended –!
A right hand clamped onto Accelerator’s other arm, and his hand brushed against Misaka’s face to no effect.
Touma Kamijou had been knocked over earlier in the battle, but not knocked out. Moving little, no matter how much it pained him to see others get hurt. His only trick was punching, which required punching range. Accelerator had demonstrated already that he wasn’t going to let him close the distance, so he had to wait until Accelerator came to him.
“What the ****?!” Accelerator screamed, trying to twist around to see who had managed to lay a hand on him. “Why can’t I feel your vectors?!”
Touma roughly pulled Accelerator around so that they could (awkwardly) look each other in the eyes, but making sure not to let go with his right hand. At the same time, he clenched his left fist. <Good night, #1.> He said.
And with that, Touma shattered Accelerator’s illusions of invincibility.
Also his nose.
Stats
Page generated in 0.022 seconds
Total duration
1,127 users online
1,725,188 hits today, 1,872,792 yesterday
FIMFiction
My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic Fanfiction
Designed and coded by knighty & Xaquseg - © 2011-2024
Follow & Support Us
Support us
SubStar
Chat!
Discord
Follow us
Twitter
MLP: Friendship is Magic® - © 2024 Hasbro Inc.®
Fimfiction is in no way affiliated with or endorsed by Hasbro Inc.®
Holy cow, it's been 11 months since I last posted here? Both FiM and New Testament have ended while I've dithered about!!
On the plus side, epilogue should be up within a couple of weeks.
Every time I read this story, I'm surprised by how you not only capture the essence of these characters, in one context or the other, but also come up with interesting self discovery moments. Twilight Sparkle got a much needed revelation about the nature of clones and how she treated them, and also Touma freed those trapped in the mirror pool, undoing a long running great travesty.
I know a bit of Touma's last second saving comes from the original material, but I always enjoy it when it's used well. He's a character with one gimmick, but what a gimmick that is, both for good and for ill.
Now I can't help but wonder what else he might break by accident merely by touching it. Honestly wouldn't be surprised if him touching Discord's statue by mistake might be next.
Wooo! Update!
... Asterisk censorship is interesting... *shrugs*
...
So goood!
...
Loving how this gets deeper into thoughts and stuff than Toaru, IIRC, with the original's mainly Touma focus!
...
...
That last line! LOL!
Very glad to see this update even if it involves my favourite Index character and my Crossing Void main fighting each other (though I always wondered how a battle between Accelerator and Kuroko would look like)
9955062
To be honest, I'd pay to see Touma punching Discord in the face.
So I suppose Touma's harem still forms even in a different context.
Ah, I love 10032. She's always been my favorite MISAKA.
Very nice battle with Accelerator. And creative uses of his vector control as well.
9955006
Oh, New Testament ended? I've only read...like, half of the first volume of NT. Just kinda forgot about it.
9955951
Only half of the first novel? Ho boy. You've missed out on the GREMLIN arc, Magic God Othinus, World Rejecter, and that one time Aleister Crowley invaded the Commonwealth of Nations.
By himself.
9956003
Hmm....actually not even that. Not sure how long the volume is, but I checked what I had written down and apparently I'm only on page 64 of NT Volume 1.....as of nearly 3 years ago.
In a world of magic and super powered espers Touma's ability really is OP when you think of it. Course most people who's fighting style relies almost entirely on a power find them selves overwhelmed when it's taken away and it's down to simple hand to hand. This is why super hero teams like the Justice League and Avengers have non-powerd members teach powered ones to fight like regular people too.
9962632
The flip side of that is that you actually can't tell that Touma even has a power unless someone else is there who has one too.
Touma beats Accelerator beats Hamazura beats Touma.
There's an epic piece of fanart illustrating this, but darn if I can find it.
Judgment.
Shirai.
Well, that was satisfying.
Twilight realized her mistake.
Accelerator was forced to realize the same thing.
And Touma shattered another illusion.
9967910
Judgement is also a valid spelling, and is the one my spellchecker enforces. But thanks for picking up "Sharai", I'm glad you liked the chapter. Sorry for getting back to you so late.
I think Accelerator swears a lot, but I don't think censoring him was that necessary. Because of the gore in this story it could be easily rated M
10001536
I don't swear in RL, so I don't like typing swear-words either. Sorry if it's immersion-breaking.
If it was me, I'd try putting a stationary force field bubble around him, but not quite touching.
After you use up all the air inside, let's see how well you do if you can't breathe
10127011
That strategy assumes that Accelerator will use nothing but his passive reflection. Twilight's forcefields are hardly indestructible - a pebble accelerated to Mach 3 could shatter one.
How many times have I read these and no noticed? At least 5? That means the action's really gripping! :)
----
I don't think you mean Applejack here? And that you accidentally duplicated a sentence?
----
"meters/yards"
? Were you deciding between options?
----
all all three girl’s
all three girls'
10524956
Thanks again for spotting these! Corrections made, though the metres/yards thing is deliberate (I've actually been using both units throughout the series, because half the case are American/Equish and the other half are Japanese/Neighponese.
10532036
You're welcome!
It was mainly because meters and yards aren't the same measurement, so I didn't know how to interpret the "/".
----
So, you didn't remove the mention of Applejack here... It's reflecting what you mean? I'm not sure how...
Because I can't see how Applejack would know what Misaka figured out, which is needed for Applejack to be shocked instead of Misaka.
10532252
Applejack, who can speak Japanese, heard and understood:
Applejack realised that Misaka realised that she'd accidentally helped set up the cloning required for this experiment; a very gasp-worthy moment.