Editing Toaru Majutsu no Index:MvM Chapter1 (section)

===Part 7===

''Honk, honk, hooooonk!!

Car horns blared endlessly. A large road was packed full of cars. People were free to impatiently abandon their vehicle and continue on foot if they wanted, but their abandoned cars only made the traffic jam worse.

“Ehh? Why is the road so congested!? I’d really like to live to teach another day.”

“Hey, Hamazura, are you sure the gate’s going to open? We aren’t trapped inside Academy City, are we?”

“Eek! That’s a Six Wings. If that attack helicopter is headed for the gate, they might be attacking anyone who tries to climb over the wall. Hanzou, Kuruwa, get out now. We need to vamoose!!”

When Mikoto launched a Railgun from the ground to shoot down the helicopter, everyone in the traffic jam scrambled out of their cars and fled.

“Eek! It’s a kaiju! There’s a kaiju here!!”

Was that any way to talk about the person who saved you?

Apparently they knew very well that a Level 5 should scare them more than some hunk-of-junk weapon.

“But why are all these cars traveling in the wrong direction?”

Mikoto glanced at her phone.

(The civilian frequencies are down all across Academy City, so their GPS map apps and compasses must not be working. Dammit Shokuhou, you really do know how to be a nuisance to everyone.)

Apparently people had a hard time noticing their own flaws.

The ordinary people were beginning to realize they were caught up in a direct clash between the Railgun, who could singlehandedly blast a hole through and conquer a vast fortress, and the Mental Out, who could brainwash countless people and use them as her pawns. But knowing that didn’t give them any way of stopping it.

Finally, the traffic lights went dark too.

Cars and motorcycles were no longer usable.

Not wanting Mikoto to make use of the citywide security camera network or the unmanned weapons, Shokuhou had cut off the internet lines. This was likely a consequence of that.

But it wasn’t perfect.

“This should do for now.”

The drum-shaped security and cleaning robots were made to operate as normal even when communications were down. Much like security cameras could operate independently when the building’s power cable or switchboard was destroyed by robbers, the robots constructed their own independent wireless communication network. You could say each individual drum acted as a small wireless LAN antenna base.

That could be abused to transmit your own data.

(That independent line is an emergency line for Anti-Skill and Judgment. This one is for fire trucks and ambulances, I think. Oh, this one is suspiciously heavily encrypted. That just makes it stand out more, but I bet it’s the military line for the unmanned weapons. They’re mine now!!)

She only needed to take control of the Six Wings and the rest of the unmanned weapons.

Once done, Mikoto frowned at the commotion occurring nearby.

(Hm? What’s going on at the supermarket? Are people buying up food and water bottles?)

If so, they were wasting their time, but it was better than having them affecting anything important. If they worked as a group to stop the source of the trouble – that is, the #3 and the #5 – Mikoto would have to directly deal with them.

But some students had snuck into the alley behind the supermarket to do something.

“The soy sauce! Drink the soy sauce, kid! Or eat a pile of salt!!”

“Ugh, why did I have to become a Level 3? Now that sparkly-eyed Queen will be after me. But can I really avoid being conscripted by ruining my health?”

“Shut up. The #5 can read minds, remember? The trick might not work if she can read all those unnecessary thoughts. Ah, forget it. Once you finish that 2L bottle, I’ll shoot you in the head with this tranquilizer gun to erase your short-term memory!! So hurry up and fill your stomach!!”

(Well, that’s just tragic.)

Was that the reason for the strange rush on the supermarket?

Mikoto could at least agree with them that attempting a life-risking trick was preferable to becoming one of Shokuhou’s pawns.

She had guessed Shokuhou’s general plan from the moment Shokuhou failed to pursue her.

Academy City was generally powered by wind. The three-blade wind turbines were spread out across the entire city, so a small number of malfunctions and minor damage would not be enough to cause a major outage. However, if the network of power cables was not properly managed and controlled, too much power generated by the turbines would gather in a single line, the current would grow too powerful for that line, and the buried cables would burn out, so there were specialized load balancing control stations to ensure the power was distributed evenly.

Ordinary power or emergency power? Public generation or private generation? Industrial power or general power?

The few switching stations found around the city could be seen as the power centers.

If you destroyed or hijacked one of those, you could cause a major power outage. And Shokuhou was going to do exactly that if she was given the chance. For no other reason than to give herself an edge by robbing electric Mikoto of the advantage the unmanned weapons and network gave her.

If Mikoto could no longer get help from the machines, she would have to fight on her own. Meanwhile, Shokuhou could brainwash any of the 2.3 million she wanted, so she could crush Mikoto with pure numbers without ever showing her face.

Mikoto understood all that, but…

“You have to be kidding me. Did that idiot not bother to check the details? A major power outage will release all the dangerous bacteria and chimera creatures frozen in the labs.”

Shokuhou was apparently willing to do whatever it took to defeat Mikoto.

The scariest thing about that villainous boobs girl was how her real anger happened quietly below the surface.

“Now, then.”

If Shokuhou was going to attack Academy City infrastructure to prevent Mikoto from using the security cameras and unmanned weapons, what would be her best target?

Mikoto hated that she knew the answer offhand.

(Probably the General District 7 Parallel Distribution Emergency Gas Turbine Generator.)

Mikoto arrived at the answer right away.

There were largescale emergency power storage stations located underground, but the city didn’t fully rely on that since they were so expensive. So Academy City had emergency power generators to ensure the labs and hospitals would have power. But if the parallel distribution adjustments weren’t handled in advance, there was a risk of a mistake during the switchover causing an outage. Mikoto knew all of this well because it as one of the options she had considered for destroying the military clone creation facilities when she was trying to attack that experiment. They had been built to meet the standards demanded by the higher ups, but no one seriously thought the entire wind power network could be taken down, so they were just generic black buildings.

“But where did Shokuhou learn about those tough generators? Hm, maybe she studied all the power infrastructure to hide the existence of the massive lab that held Exterior.”

That aside, if she did cause a major outage by abusing a competition bug between the ordinary and emergency power, it really would affect the city’s labs.

Then the brutal viruses and chimera creatures frozen inside would be free. Welcome to Resident You-Know-What. If only the scientists wouldn’t create things for fun that could destroy the entire city if there was any trouble.

Mikoto didn’t want to act impulsively because it would make her easier to predict, but she couldn’t ignore this problem either.

She walked to a thick concrete facility larger than the average school.

An adult of course stopped her at the power facility’s front gate.

“Hey, you! This building is off limits!! I don’t know if factory tours are the latest fad or what, but I will call Anti-Skill if you enter without perm-”

''Kaboom!!!

A single Railgun blast – a warning shot – put a stop to that.

Mikoto clapped her hands twice.

“Okay, time to leave everyone! Thousands of mindless zombies are about to attack here, so you need to evacuate now!! Your dedication to your jobs is admirable, but wouldn’t you prefer to get away alive and actually see your families again? If you hesitated for even a moment, then get on back home. You have five minutes!!”

“…”

“What do you think is more deadly: being crushed by a crowd of thousands, or taking a direct hit from a Railgun flying at three times the speed of sound?”

“E-eek!!”

The adults fled in a panic.

It was wonderful they had homes and families to go back to.

(Hm, maybe I should have covered my face with a bandanna. No, I’m wearing a Tokiwadai uniform and shooting Railguns – anyone would know it’s me.)

She heard more loud footsteps and confused voices, but it sounded like the workers had chosen to evacuate.

The emergency siren blaring fruitlessly through the building was soon the only sound there.

“Now, then.”

Mikoto made a magnetically-boosted jump 15m straight up and grabbed the work ladder on the side of the long smokestack for the gas turbine generator’s exhaust.

From that height, she could already see them.

She could sense the biological wave filling the main street from the other side.

Those thousands of people had been brainwashed by Shokuhou.

Shokuhou had apparently already cut off internet access, so Mikoto could not deploy the Six Wings or any other unmanned weapon.

Mikoto had no way of knowing if she could defeat all of the approaching people if she fought on her own. And if even one of them made it deep inside the building, the gas turbine generator was done for.

“Tch!!”

Her iron sand sword and lightning spear wouldn’t help much here. Individual attacks targeting single points could not eliminate this crowd flooding the scene. While she was attacking them one by one, more people would push in and she would be swallowed up.

Which meant…

(This probably violates some treaty banning chemical weapons, but whatever!!)

Electricity crackled from Mikoto’s bangs, but not because she was directly attacking a target.

An odd scent filled the air.

Humans needed oxygen to survive and those oxygen molecules were made from two oxygen atoms bound together. But if powerful electricity broke that bond, three oxygen atoms could bind together to form ozone.

And of course, humans could not breathe ozone.

Which was strange when it was all the same oxygen atoms.

“I can win by knocking them all out from lack of oxygen!!!”

Mikoto defended the generator by erecting an invisible fainting wall.

The boys and girls on the front line collapsed.

But it wasn’t over yet.

With an odd “fwoosh!!” sound, flames and wind spiraled out. A powerful explosion pushed the gas away, tearing apart the ozone-rich oxygen-deficient air.

Mikoto was an esper, but so were they.

The most troublesome aspect of the Shokuhou Army was how they could still use their powers when brainwashed.

And once they were safe, the group of thousands flooded over the fence.

“Uh, oh!!”

Mikoto made up her mind before she was swallowed up.

The large facility’s central control room was protected by thick concrete walls and a metal door. She decided to lock herself in there, but then a dull tremor shook the entire building vertically.

Even with so many, could human bodies really cause that much destruction?

(Oh, no, no, no!! Their numbers can break through the 5cm-thick metal door even if I magnetically hold it in place!!)

She heard a dull thud on the other side of the door.

People were scattered throughout the facility.

This was just one of them.

But they must have found it odd when they turned the knob and the door didn’t open. They persistently rattled the knob for a bit before shouting out loud and kicking hard on the other side of the door.

That wasn’t enough to break through the door, but…

(I’m in trouble if they call the others here!!)

Time was running out.

What could Mikoto do here while Shokuhou worked to bring down power across Academy City!?

Not enough.

She had to admit she could not reach Shokuhou in her current state.

She couldn’t stop that girl.

At this rate, a largescale power outage would release all the dangerous viruses and chimera creatures frozen inside the labs. That would transform this into an urban survival battle.

(I really didn’t want to use this except as an absolute last resort, but I guess I’ve reached that point.)

“Hello?”

<?> <?> <?>

She wasn’t using a phone, but she heard multiple gasps in her mind.

Their brains were structured the same at the genetic level, but Mikoto and the mass-produced military clones known as the Sisters were not normally connected by the brainwave network. But if Mikoto fine-tuned her own brainwaves, she could force a connection. …She just really didn’t like contacting it because it blurred the line between them – that is, their memories and personalities as individuals.

This was an exception.

''Anything was on the table here, as long as it was physically possible.

Big Sis Mikoto made a suggestion.

“Academy City is in serious trouble, so I want your help. The Misaka Network is made by linking your brains in parallel, right? I use the same brainwaves, so if I can borrow that processing power, it should expand my possibilities.”

<Why should the Misakas involve ourselves in this? asks Misaka while maintaining a calm viewpoint and sighing at her short-tempered big sist->

“What, you don’t want to see that lump of excess fat cry?”

<…> <…> <…>

The Sisters had been made based on Misaka Mikoto’s genetic information, so (with the exception of Misaka Worst) they were all flat.

And they didn’t need to know the exact measurement for Shokuhou Misaki.

The first of her measurements – the one abbreviated as “B” – could be adequately described with a sound effect: ''boing.

Everyone on the Misaka Network responded at once.

<Yes. Let’s hit her with everything we have, replies Misaka.> <Yes. Let’s hit her with everything we have, replies Misaka.> <Yes. Let’s hit her with everything we have, replies Misaka.>