Editing Toaru Majutsu no Index:Crossover2 (section)

===Part 21===

'''(Heivia/Ground’s Nir)

The Plasma Horn.

The Second Generation Object of the Legitimacy Kingdom’s 16th Mobile Maintenance Battalion.

In addition to the H-shaped static electricity propulsion device directly below the spherical main body, it had a halo-like ring on the back. Twelve cylindrical plasma boosters were arranged on the ring like on a clock’s face, giving the Object the ability to take instant evasive action. The main cannons were located on the very front of the spherical main body. The three low-stability plasma cannons formed the corners of an equilateral triangle. But rather than firing them individually, they were situated close enough together that firing all three caused the plasma blasts to interfere with each other and trigger a massive explosion on any coordinate within range.

If their focus weakened, its penetrative power would drop, but that also meant it would spread over a wider area and be harder to dodge. After roasting the enemy Object’s surface enough to dull its movements, it would focus the blast to a single point to punch through a weak point. It was known as a bottomless bog because there was no escape once you were caught in its ideal pattern.

But the Plasma Horn had a flaw. And that flaw was the reason why it had not been nominated as the king of Object destruction despite all of its successes in battle.

…While roasting the enemy Object, it would also kill the enemy soldiers. That was impossible to avoid when firing beams of heat measuring hundreds of meters and scattering shockwaves to heat up an Object’s nuke-resistant surface. That was why it was known as a leading candidate for the most inhumane weapons. If not for its many successes, its entire strategic theory would have been thrown out.

Simply put, it was the worst possible opponent here.

“H-how did that giant thing get through the Gate…?”

Filinion was still on her butt and with her glasses slipping below her teary eyes, but they had more important things to worry about.

It had detected them.

As a chicken with excellent survival skills, Heivia shouted from the handsome face’s mouth.

“Not good. If we’re here on the surface, just the residual heat will be enough to kill us! Is there a cliff, a canyon, a cave, or anywhere at all we can get underground? In less than 10 seconds!?”

That was obviously an unreasonable request.

Heivia himself did not actually think they would find such a convenient landmass.

And even if there was a cave right in front of them and they ran inside, the expansion of air from that dreadful heat would mercilessly reach them inside. This really was the worst possible opponent.

The Plasma Horn’s three main cannons slowly turned their way in unison. Whether it was a focused shot or a scattering one, a single blast would burn down the forest, vaporize the ground, and turn it all to plasma.

Or it should have.

However.

Just as the unstoppable plasma was fired, it unnaturally curved upwards…and…away???

Only one of them had done anything at all. Beatrice, the red armored girl, had pulled something like a rapier from her hip.

That was all, and yet she had diverted a blast that could destroy an Object. After flying quite a ways up into the air, the three lines mixed together and produced an explosion, but that high up in the air, it only dazzle their eyes and stung their skin. The white clouds were unnaturally torn away, but that was all. The grim reaper’s inescapable scythe had failed to reap Heivia’s head.

“Wh-what? What just happened?”

It was now his turn to be befuddled.

Meanwhile, Beatrice seemed to recite something with her back turned.

“Blossom, great flower. Reveal the seven trees.”

The scenery changed. It was all wrapped in illusory flames. Their surroundings – including the Plasma Horn so far away – were contained within seven giant walls of flame. They almost looked like tall eyes and they partitioned off a space into something like a cage or an arena.

The Plasma Horn must have been equally puzzled. It fired its main cannons twice more, but they still veered upwards or withered away into nothing before traveling far.

Heivia had no explanation for any of it.

Filinion said something while still on her butt and holding her white witch’s hat down with both hands.

“O-oh, honestly. There’s her obsession with excessive firepower again. This is why Beatrice can’t protect her frail healer even though she’s ''supposed'' to be our vanguard. One single stray blast could blow me into a million pieces!!”

“What is that? Are you saying that red girl did this!? These are low-stability plasma cannon blasts that can punch through Object armor!!”

“Yeah, I figured it had to be using something like that since you said it was called the Plasma Horn. Looks like I was right.” Beatrice spoke casually without even looking back. “I’m a Holy Swordswoman who has gathered 14,000 types of Fire Element Magic. …Now, you can’t measure fire’s mass but you can see it and it can push at other objects. So what is it? It isn’t a solid, a liquid, or a gas. It’s a fourth state of matter. In other words, plasma. Right?”

“Wha-…?”

“Then again, I can’t directly control everything we call a plasma. For example, lightning or an aurora. If so, I’d have control over 99% of the universe. The Element of fire is a large category. …But that doesn’t do damage with a high-voltage electric current like a stun gun. It burns the surface using intense heat. So the plasma is being created for the same purpose as fire, right?”

This was extraordinary.

Heivia could not accept it even after he had it explained to him.

He doubted a strict look at the physics behind it would hold up.

But that was why it kind of made sense to him. It was that nonsensical power that the Plasma Horn had wanted. The 16th put more effort into things like excavating historical ruins than firefights. If the occult they had dreamed of showed up in front of them in a physical form, they would likely find it pretty exciting. To the point that they would forget their duty to report it to their superiors and try to take it for themselves.

They had done whatever it took to get it.

And that included messing with the basic structure of the Plasma Horn.

“…Cultivated Muscles.”

“?”

“The Object’s signals transmission system must use nerve tissue and lymph fluid taken from the Pilot Elite and cultivated from there. By equipping the machine with a part of their own body, they tricked the Gate into thinking the entire Object was a human body. If they really wanted your Magic, I wouldn’t put it past them to go that far.”

Heivia himself had thought the handsome skin had passed through the Gate with him because it was his possession. But that was not it. Beatrice’s group had already stated that only your own body and knowledge or experiences could pass through the gate, so any physical items would be difficult.

In that case, the Gate had to have been tricked somehow. He did not know if this was a prize brought back from another world or if it was a test case made before doing the same thing with the Object. But this told him one thing for sure. He shuddered at the thought, but he and the handsome boy really were seen as a single being with no division between them.

…Of course, the 16th would not have understood everything from the beginning. They must have fought back against an invader from Ground’s Nir, followed them through the opened hole, and then run tests to see what could travel between worlds. Some volunteers may have died before they used the actual Elite or they may have disappeared never to be heard from again. If they had tried to take advantage of this without understanding how it worked, that kind if trial and error would have had to happen at some point.

And they had succeeded.

This was an Object made to invade another world. No concept weapon in history had ever been so twisted.

The countless cannons on the monster’s spherical main body audibly moved.

“It won’t just be plasma this time. It’s going to use railguns, coilguns, rapid-fire beam cannons, and laser beams that travel at the speed of light. A single defense isn’t going to work here.”

Heivia warned them, but none of them changed their behavior. Not Beatrice, not Filinion who got up and brushed off her butt, not Armelina who raised her metal staff, and not Boo Boo who reached for his waist and pulled out a 2m mass that could be mistaken for a log or a steel beam.

And even as he warned them, Heivia had another thought.

If this was enough to crush them and existing strategies could sweep them away, then the 16th and the Plasma Horn would not have been so attracted by their power that they strayed from the normal path.

“Boo.” The pig-faced giant made it sound like the most normal thing in the world. “We can’t let them burn down the forest. Let’s end this.”