Sunlight lit the abandoned parking building in dimlight. The rays filtered through floating dust and particulates frokm the scattered construction materials left after discontinuation of the structure's completion. Footsteps echoed out with each passing second, a pace that was slow and haunting in its pace. Steps that were taken with deliberate intention of letting one's presence be known. These were the steps of a confident hunter.
"Oh my. I didn't think you'd come."
"I couldn't exactly say no after the lovely invitation."
"You mean these?"
White tendrils exposed themselves to what little light was available. Entwined within them were a pair of severed arms and a right leg cut from the knee.
"Yeah.", came the bored drawl from the hunter. "but I remember it being a bit rounder.". He threw something towards the one who invited him. It bounced off the black asphalt, rolling as it lost the kinetic force keeping it in motion. The object presented itself as an eyeball while it stared at its sender.
"Ah, yes. How could I forget. Silly me."
Another pale tendril snaked its way from the shadows. It enveloped the eyeball and lifted it up in scrutiny.
"Such a lovely tint to it. Don't you think number 1?"
"Cut the crap trash.", spat academy city's number 1 esper. White hair and scrawny build, the telltale black and white shirt that only he seemed to wear. The one feared as the invincible accelerator.
An amused hum sounded from the shadows, "Why are you so agitated? Could it be you care about these two?".
"AAAAGGGGHHH!!!!!"
"NNNGGGGGAAAAAAAAAGGGGGGHHHHH!!!!!!!"
Two voices screamed from the darkness. Accelerator could make out two shapes. One of a short haired brunette girl of 12 in a woollen dress, the other was of the same age with long raven hair in a straight hime cut in a punk tank top and leather pants. But something was very wrong with these two. Blood was slattered about them, on the walls and on the ground. The girl in a blood-stained woollen dress was missing her right arm and right eye. The hime cut punk girl was missing both arms and a hole in her flank large enough to fit a pingpong ball, the edges of red encroaching on porcelain skin. Fatal wounds to be sure, but they were alive and well. Each opening that would have bled them to death was covered by a white tendril. Inexplicably, like living things, these unearthly tendrils pulsed with a heartbeat.
Accelerator spared them a glance, then scoffed. "Who the hell are they that I should care?"
"Hmm... I was sure you would feel at least some attatchment to those who share your powers."
"Pffft! Kukuku...kahahahaha!-hahahaha! What the hell are talking about you little shit? Share powers? Are you sure you know what you're talking about dumbass?"
...
Pale eyes stared at the cackling albino. "The Dark May Project."
Those words cut through the obscene laughter, silencing it immediately.
"The Dark May Project is a large scale experiment to recreate your Vector Control abilities. This is done by integrating your personal reality into theirs. Modifying their thought patterns into yours. Am I not wrong? In a way, you are responsible for them because you granted their abilities. Isn't it natural that you would feel some attatchment to them?"
A few moments of silence passed. Save for the labored breathing of the girls struggling to survive, no sound was made. Then Accelerator sighed, "You really are a dumbass aren't you? If you want to play the villain then do it right. Responsibility has nothing to do with it. If you want to kill them then do it. I don't care if they live or die. Hell when I came, I assumed they were dead.".
"Then you came to avenge them?"
"Wrong again dumbass. Let me teach you something. A grade A villain knows exactly how his victim ticks, and you clearly get an F for that. For the answer key, I repeat: I don't give a damn.", Academy City's strongest esper stepped forward. "Responsibility because I gave them my power? You have it the other way around, they should feel responsible because they have fragments of my power. Even if it's fake, the power of the Accelerator is absolute. I honestly have to thank you. If you had killed them, then I wouldn't be able to kill them myself for shaming my name."
"Then maybe I should correct that?"
The pulsing tendrils began to bulge and vein out. Both girls that lay on the ground snapped awake screaming. Their wails not nearly as haunting as the blood beginning to ooze between the cracks of their wounds and the tendrils.
"You have my thanks number 1. If it weren't for you, I would have never mastered my dark matter to this level. At least that much I'm willing to say."
"Tch.", the powerful albino tipped his head arrogantly at this paltry show of force. "Leaving out the part where I tore you limb from limb? How so very like you trash."
"it is as you say.", the speaker stepped into the dim sunlight. "You did tear me limb from limb. I cannot deny that either.".
The figure in the shadows became visible. His face finely formed. One could even say it was of a handsome young man. And perhaps once upon a time they would not be wrong. His hair was long, reaching just above his shoulder blades but fanned out in an ordered chaos of feathery spikes. His build was slight, only a little broader than that of the number one esper of academy city. But in the city of espers, physical strength meant nothing. What mattered was power. And this being's power was called Dark Matter. This person who had invited the number one esper was Kakine Teitoku, rated the number 2 level 5 of Academy City.
But despite the telling features, Accelerator had to raise a brow at the teen opposite himself. "The hell's wrong with your face?"
A valid question. As right now, the number 2 esper in academy city's face looked like it was split in two and then stitched back together. But if one looked closer, it was not only two pieces nor was it only his face. If one observed him properly, the boy looked like a patchwork quilt. Some of him had patches of healthy fair skin, others were a stark white. These white parts did not cover only skin but also his insides if pale insides of his mouth was any indication. The upper fraction of the head sparing only the right cheek and jaw, the dominant region of his right pectorals and lung, the left leg and connecting joint to the pelvis. All these were white.
Kakine snapped his eyes into a glare. "You said it yourself. You tore me limb from limb. And for a genius you don't even wonder how I could survive"
"It doesn't matter if you survived or came back from the dead.", Accelerator bent his neck in a sickening satisfying crack. "I'll just keep killing you till you're dead.", he said with a mad grin.
The glare had changed to a confident smirk. Dark Matter tilted his head back in challenge, "You have no idea what you're dealing with."
"Neither do you desite how many times I remind you."
A sickening crack and a splorch of crushed guts, the punk girl known as Umidori Kuroyoru screamed in utter agony as Kakine smiled darkly. "Well there goes her uterus."
Accelerator's eyes narrowed, "What?"
Kakine spared him a glance. "Her reproductive system. I just destroyed it. Though I doubt she'll ever get to use it."
Red eyes watched the screaming girl who was now practically foaming at the mouth as spittle and blood poured out with sick juices from her stomach. Such was the pain this 12 year old was going through. But other than the tendrils attached to the girl's wounds, none else made contact with her much less attack inside.
...
"So that's it? That's your little trick?"
The Dark Matter user's grin widened, "Praytell what trick is that?"
"Some evolution. You can use your dark matter as bio-organic mass now to supplement lost limbs and organs. That's the reason you're still alive, that's the same reason you can keep those two rejects there alive for so long or hurt them from the insides."
Clap clap clap
"Bravo. You figured it out. Only, there's one small thing I'd like to correct.", Kakine flicked his fingers. The odd stark white digits extending from his hand flinging a similarly pale mass.
These masses fell on the ground in flecks. They remained still for a few moments before beginning to shake. They grew in volume at an exponential rate. Their white uickly overruning the black asphalt before the masses reached upwards to form something. Six masses had formed, and six visages stood. Each one looking exactly like Kakine Teitoku, only pure white.
"Clones?", Accelerator grunted in disappointment. "If that's all you've got then this'll be over before-"
CRACK!
Accelerator jumped back to a knee. A white fist forcing a crater into the location he had just been occupying. His own pale hand clawing at the asphalt to blast shrapnel at the offender. But his AIM field flickered. Unidentifiable masses approaching at inhuman speeds. Accelerator pushed down with his legs, exploding upwards. His hand met the cieling in less than a second and his ascdent stopped as the force was willed to crumble the concrete above within a set radius around him. Something broke through his personal perimeter and Accelerator found himself face to face with an ivory colored Kakine.
BANG!
Accelerator slammed against the pavement hard. The number one recovered too slow as two more Kakines came in a simultaneous strike to decapitate him with a kick and disembowel him with a fist made of spikes.
"Tch."
He tapped the floor again, redirecting the force once more to rush up as shrapnel in specific locations. Both attackers were repulsed as they had been effectively ripped to shreds by the jet black mixture of rock and tar.
"Not bad.", Kakine watched from the sidelines. His six dopplegangers crowded around him. Each one disfigured one way or another, wether it was from having rocks fallen on them, or shot into them at speeds of an assault rifle's bullet.
Academy City's number one esper observed them. Slowly, he stood up, eyes guarded, looking for any signs of attack from the Kakines. "So they're not clones.".
The master of Dark Matter chuckled arrogantly, "They never were. They're me. As I am them. Spare bodies you might say. I control them as if they were my hands or my feet."
"But that's not how the human anatomy works. The brain only has enough faculties to control one body. Managing so many at once is-"
"Who said I was limited by the human anatomy?", the number 2 paused to let that sink in. "My Dark Matter has the ability to supplement lost limbs and organs. It can even recreate the human body perfectly."
One white Kakine stepped forward as another Kakine produced a sword of dark matter. The second Kakine cut the first Kakine right across the chest. The sound of steel cutting bone was heard as the wound was spread open by the wounded body itself. It exposed its insides, lungs, heart, stomach, major arteries. All of them beating as a system.
The semi-organic Kakine spoke, "Inside myself, I don't possess only one brain. I possess three.".
If he was intimidated, Accelerator didn't show it.
"Those three brains allow me enough calculating ability to control these six other bodies. And within them are a single brain with enough calculating power to do this.". He snapped his fingers. And with a slurp and pop, the Kakine which had been cut open regained its original form. "So you see, as long as I have dark matter I can regenerate infinitely. In fact, so long as dark matter exists, I cannot be destroyed. One could go so far as to say dark matter is Kakine Teitoku's existence."
"It seems you're a bit hard at hearing. I told you already. It doesn't matter if you regenerate, ressurect or whatever. I'll kill you till you stay dead.".
SPLURT!
"Guh gukha."
"Well I suggest you hurry. It seems I've found miss Kinuhata's spleen."
SPLAT!
"AAAAAAAAHHHHHHH!!!!!!!"
The brunette screamed. She screamed in agony, in pain. She screamed at the blunt yet burning sensation emanating from her back.
"Hmm... It seems I was mistaken. It was her kidney I got. She can manage with one don't you think?"
"You can crush her heart for all I care.".
This time, it was Accelerator that took the charge. His intent clear. He would silence that insolent second-rate. He would rip Kakine limb from limb again and cell from cell if need be.
Ting!
The clear sound of a bell. Resounded within the parking sstructure. And with a bang, a torrent of emerald light tore clean through the wall to Accelerator's right. It engulfed him from Kakine's sight and lit up the area bright as day. The light continued to pour for a few seconds before it stopped in a grandiose explosion.
"What"s this? A little get together and I wasn't even invited?", a young woman's voice spoke. "I'm quite hurt about that.".
Hair the color of red tea and a simple yellow dress were her most striking features the brown jacket over her shoulders only served to give her an odd aura of toughness. On her full lips was a thin smile, one she only reserved for times when death would be on her hands. She stepped through the entrance made by the light which was big enough to accomodate 3 trailer trucks, let alone a young woman.
"What are you doing here Meltdowner?", Kakine Teitoku asked the number 4 level 5 of Academy City esper.
"Well. I heard that you were holding a little soiree here. I decided to crash the party. By the by? I'll be taking my subordinate over there with me when I decide to leave."
A ghostly smile formed on Kakine's face as well. "I do believe it's the host who can say when the party is over."
"It won't make much of a difference when he's dead.", Mugino Shizuri smiled sweetly. She held up her right hand, the long sleeve around her right arm ripped apart as the limb began to shift and fold. The insides of the flesh colored apendage exposing steel and wiring of a highly advanced prosthesis. It continued to shift and fold until it was only a few inches in length from her shoulder. Where her arm should've been, an arm made purely of emerald light extended into terrifying claws that looked like they could rip one's face off if they didn't disintegrate matter on contact. The color of her right eye faded aaway, iris, sclera and all. Instead it began to glow a pale green befitting that of a machine.
"That arm and that eye... So the stories were true. You did lose to some no name level 0s."
Mugino closed her eyes. "Yes, I did. But don't worry. I properly killed all of them. I was even kind enough to grant one of their wishes to not die like trash. I made sure not to leave even ashes, let alone bodies to be dumped into an incinerator.". A sickeningly serene smile reached all the way to her eyes.
"You seem calm."
"Rage only gives way to an uncontrollable power. Just like you, I learn from my losses. By staying calm, I can optimize the output of my Meltdowner and give it a stable form like so."
Mugino pointed a lone claw of energy at the half-human boy and fired a large blast of emerald light easily 3 or 4 feet in diameter.
"I do not lose to anyone.", Kakine muttered with narrowed eyes. "I am merely set back."
The beam slammed into the number 2. Amazingly, Meltdowner's beam did not run him through. Instead, the beam could not advance past him. It was being blocked, something unheard of.
Mugino paused her warning shot and stared at the amorphous mass of white before her. "Looks like those pissants in the lab coats were wrong. Something can block my Meltdowner after all."
"Nothing is unblockable Meltdowner. Given a thick enough barrier, anything can be stopped. Even your electron beam cannon."
"What was that? 10 or 20 kilometers?"
"2000.", Kakine muttered with a grimface.
"Making enough dark matter to expand into that kind of volume. You really are something number 2. Too bad you lack the offense."
"Naive."
The mass of dark matter before Kakine shot forward. Molding itself into a lance mid-air, its intent was clear.
"Try harder.", Mugino drawled, non-chalant as her energy arm shot up to catch the offending appendage. "I'm part machine so some of my reflexes are a bit more... Instantaneous.", the girl with the prothesis grinned.
Kakine grunted and the lance grew roots from its shaft. All of them formed into smaller lances in an attempt to turn Mugino into a pretty pin cushion.
Emerald light shot up from all around Mugino. Each one was a pinpoint blast meant to destroy the individual lances. The two powers met and Kakine snapped his fingers, signaling his dark matter lances to explode into unstable matter.
The master of dark matter watched the smoke clear away from his opponent. He was not surprised to see a sphere of green enveloping the place where the young woman had been standing. It cleared away with a shimmer to reveal the girl barely worse for wear.
"Your shield can repel matter. But I highly doubted it could repel force."
"Don't mind it.", Meltdowner flicked errand strands of hair away from her face. "I need at least some form of handicap to make things interesting."
"Why yo-!?"
Kakine turned his attention from the young woman to the two girls he had been torturing. Only they were no longer in pain, nor were they attatched to his dark matter. Instead, Academy City's number one esper was kneeling in front of them. He huddled the two together and had his hands on each one's forehead.
"Purge confirmed. All dark matter destroyed.", Accelerator muttered before standing upright. He sent the two other level 5s a glare, particularly to one Meltdowner. "If you wanted to save the brats, you could've just aimed for that piece of shit from the start, Robo-bitch."
"Is that any way to talk to the person that made you a hero?"
"Made me a hero? Don't bullshit yourself. All you did was give me an errand."
"One that you embraced oh so willingly."
"I should've just killed you."
"I would have just countered the same way if you reflected my beam back at me."
"Rrgh! Silence! What is this!? The two of you are in alliance?"
"HAAAHHH??"
Two level 5s echoed from either side of the number 2.
"You gotta have something wrong in that fucked up brain of yours to assume such a thing.", Accelerator pointed at his head with his hand mimicking a gun.
"I didn't have much of a choice. If I wanted to save Saiai, I needed someone who could cleanse her of your dark matter.", Mugino scoffed.
"But that coordination couldn't have been possible without some sort of communication. Neither of you spoke, nor was there any form of transmission. How?"
"Idiot. We were talking right in front of you."
"What?", Kakine glared at the Meltdowner.
"It was a trick second-rate. One that's a lot more entertaining than the one you have. Remember that electrons have two spins. Positive and negative. When Number 4 over there shot me with her meltdowner, she made sure particle electrons were still existing inside. They spun both positively and negatively. From my AIM I can detect these spins. By alternating between positive and negative, she was able to mimic one of the oldest means of long distance communication."
...
"Don't tell me... Morse Code."
"Bingo.", Accelerator rushed forward with a kick to the ground. His signature cackles following him as he thirsted for blood.
"Guh!", Kakine stepped back, dodging the wild swing of Academy City's strongest. Seeing the albino off balance, he charged in with a counterattack of a dark matter lance made with material properties Accelerator's AIM had yet to identify.
"Too bad number 1. But this is where our contract ends."
Green light swallowed the top two espers before dark matter met flesh. Kakine Teitoku jumped away from the stream with a corroded shield moments before the light exploded.
Kakine landed on a knee and surveyed the damage which had been wrought. To one side was Meltdowner, her energy hand outstretched from firing that large scale beam. And his direct adversary had yet to emerge from the dust, no matter how clear it was to him that the albino could easily survive such a juvenile attack.
"Kukukuku! You've really done it now! What the hell is with that half-assed defense!? Shooting your beams at the beams being deflected back. What the hell!? Kakakakaka!"
Mugino Shizuri pulled back her energy arm and sighed, "I'm still alive aren't I?"
A strong wind howled within the ruined building. It whipped up dust and debris, disheveling the hair of the number 2 and 4. It was a wild and ferocious gust.
"Let's fix that!", declared the Accelerator as the dust obscuring him from view dispersed explosively. Moments after which the dust was sucked back in to the albino's back, forming two long strands which resembled wings. "Kekekeke! This is getting interesting. Let's properly start round 2!"
-----
Shokuhou Misaki opened her eyes. The 5th level 5, Mental Out also known as the-
"Queen.", a girl spoke before the blonde girl with starlit irises.
"I have located the other level 5s.", Shokuhou stood from the cushioned seat that acted as her throne.
"Shall we send one of your proxies?"
"No. There is no need to waste resources. You may as well drop a sugarcube in the ocean in the effort of sweetening it. Sending a level 4 into that world of monsters is no less than a meaningless suicide."
"Then what shall we do?"
...
"Send scouts. Make sure they do not get caught in the battle. They will act as my eyes and my ears. Level 4s are strong, but to a level 5, the world and its inhabitants may well be toy blocks to be toppled over."
"I understand."
The girl turned on her heel and left through the shadows of the dark room.
Misaki sighed, her face one of weariness. One face she covered with strength before her subordinates and cheer for everyone else. She stepped down from her throne, walking along the aisle before her. The facility's automated motion detector system signaling lights to activate as she passed them with each step. The lamps on either side, as she continued her steps, glowed hypnotically. She reached the center of the hall which was a much larger tube which lit up as well. Mental Out smiled sadly as her gloved hands traced the engraved identification plate at the machine base of the tube.
"Dolly", she read wistfully.
Inside the tube was a young girl. Only 12 years old with short brown hair. Her body carved with scars from numerous experiments and life-saving operations. This was Dolly, the first human clone/designer baby. Misaki's first friend within this cloning facility.
"Don't worry, I'll find a way to heal you soon. Until then, you don't need to worry about a thing.", Misaki spoke to her comatose friend, floating inside the cloning vat.
Immediately, the lights of the whole room lit up. It exposed the insides of the tubes, each one holding a massive brain. Those tubes were labelled "Exterior" followed by numbers indicating the day these cloned brains were cultured from their source cells.
Misaki returned to her throne. Her fatigue was not only emotional, it was well and truly physical. Exterior was a bettery of cloned brains, "her" brains, which she used to augment her already powerful telepathic abilities. With this augmented power, it was easy for her to throw a mind scan on a world wide-scale without the assistance of her remote. The limitations to that however was she only knew their position. Without actually delving into their mind, she could not tell what they doing nor would she have any idea of the situation her target was in. As troublsome as it is, those three level 5s she had been spying on were ones she could not read due to the nature of their powers. She needed to send in people who she could control.
Beep beep
Misaki looked down to her celphone. It was a text from one of her clique. It seemed the scout had arrived on location. She flipped the phone shut and took one last look at Dolly.
"Aleister Crowley.", the name of Academy City's chief superintendent. The man who supposedly built Academy City from the ground up with access to all the accumulated knowledge known to man at his fingertips. "If I can surpass the 4 above me. Surely, that great man will grant me an audience."
Misaki would be able to find a cure for Dolly. It was at best, a foolhardy attemtp at saving a clone who had a limited lifespan from the start. But they were friends.
With that resolve in her heart, Misaki once more activated exterior.