Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

Index could only run. 

That was all that she could do left to protect herself. Her? Yes, she/her pronouns worked just fine, as was also jumping from roof to roof throughout Academy City. It was rather simple once she got used to it.

Then the power in town suddenly blacked out and she couldn’t see where she was going anymore. Index could easily see the massive amount of Mana being released from somebody activating their Aura from a bridge using a coin as their Conduit. That was the source of the blackout and when she crash landed onto the balcony of a resident student and fell asleep to recharge her batteries. She could refuel in the morning.

Chapter Text

Kamijou Touma was walking to his apartment in the Seventh School District of Academy City, the artificial archipelago complex that was composed entirely of nearly ten thousand schools of several types, ranging from preschools up through universities of all kinds that was built into a perfect circle divided into 24 Districts, with every seven Districts being shaped into a ring-like formation, referred to as “Circles” by the students. Kamijo lived in District 7, since Districts 1-7 (“The Inner Circle”) were meant to serve as a sort of mass orphanage for the students to call home. Majority of the children in Academy City were often orphaned and/or abandoned thanks to the Meta-Genes each student was positive for making their families targets for trafficking rings who’d kidnap and enslave them, so Academy City was shielded by its Aura Concealment Warding System, to protect them from the outside world. At least, that’s what the students were always told the Warding System was for.

Unfortunately, his girlfriend, one Misaka Mikoto, had used her Meta-Ability (or “Quirk” as many students preferred to call their powers) of Railgun Pulse to create a blackout, making the Warding System temporarily offline for a few hours last night. Thankfully, no satellites or otherwise were able to track the coordinates of Academy City and use them to target their hometown, due to the emergency protocols and backup plans put in place for such an event. This city had seen similar events occur throughout its history, and preparing for repeats was normal enough.

Designation: The Inner Circle

Codename: “Perfect Neverland”

• District 1 - The Nursery (Newborn to Age 2/3)

• District 2 - Preschool/Pre-K (Ages 2/3 - 3/4)

• District 3 - Kindergarten (Ages 3/4 - 6/7)

• District 4 - Elementary School (First Grade - Fourth Grade)

• District 5 - Intermediate School (Fifth Grade - Sixth Grade)

• District 6 - Middle School (Seventh Grade - Eighth Grade)
•  
• District 7 - High School (Ninth Grade/Freshman Year - Twelfth Grade/Senior Year)

A couple of hours later, after a study date with Misaka and Shirai as the trio finally came home to their apartment, they saw a strange android collapsed onto their balcony. It was dressed like a Church Sister and had blue-white colored wires for hair. Her habit was white with golden threads holding it together. The same was true for her dress.

“Who do we call about this?” Kuroko asked as she and Touma brought the android into their apartment’s living room and laid her down on the sofa.

“Touma, you know that we could get in trouble for this, right?” Mikoto said as she got her socks and shoes on, preparing to go outside and get a mechanic.

“I don’t know what to do either, but it’s not like we can just leave her on our balcony. We got anything to feed her with?” Touma replied to them as he started looking around for food.

“Crackers.” Answered the android herself as she woke up. “I want crackers, cheese and summer sausages, please.” She requested, speaking in accented Japanese. Her grammar was accurate, though her syntax was more in line with English, which sounded typical for someone learning Japanese and was still new to the language. As for her accent, it was hard to pin down.

“Guess Mokoto-Chan and I are going grocery shopping tonight. BRB, Touma-Kun!” Kuroko declared after putting on her socks and shoes and grabbed Misaka’s hands, rapidly activating her Quirk of Tesseract Movement and teleported themselves to a nearby store to get some food.

“Okay then. They’re not gonna be home for a while, and I need to clear out the fridge anyways, so is it alright if I cook you something?” Touma remarked as he simply went to pull out the thawed out frozen food out of the fridge and tossed them into a skillet to cook them into something of a meal for the android, who required food to convert into fuel to power her body, according to her explanation before Shirai and Mikoto teleported. The attempted dish that Touma cooked to serve four people was a disaster of culinary skills, as the textures and flavors were both all over the place, not to mention several ingredients were overcooked, since it was very meaty and each meat required different temperatures to keep them free of any chance of harboring food-borne illnesses. Despite that, Index devoured her meal with a deep amount of gratitude and gusto, but Touma thought that she was just praising the disaster of a dish out of pity.

Index introduced herself properly as she finished the last bits of her meal and offered to help out Touma’s refrigerator situation. Once that was dealt with, Touma introduced himself in return, as well as detailing his own Quirk of Power Breaker.

Designation: Kamijo Touma 

Codename: “Power Breaker”

• Meta Test Confirmation - Positive

• Skill Level - Phase Zero (Impotent)
• Meta-Ability Type - Unknown (Potentia Incognita)

Meta-Ability Description:

Personal Reality manifests as frequent bursts of misfortunate events within 2m of the subject’s Aura Field when in its Passive State. Upon entering the Active Aura Mindset, the subject’s Meta-Ability will shift into its Active State, in which any other Meta-Abilities within the immediate 2m range are canceled out by the subject through skin-to-skin contact.

“I see.” Index remarked in fascination by the nature of a Meta-Ability. She knew that Aura Theory could be used for Psionics, but to learn that such a rumor was true was interesting, at least to her.

Chapter Text

Misaka Mikoto was having a weird week even more so than her boyfriend was, but her girlfriend was making it hard to investigate the origins of Index, since teleporting without asking permission was common for Kuroko. Hopefully, Touma was having better luck than they were. What was making this week weirder than usual wasn’t just Index’s arrival into Academy City, although that was definitely outside the norm, but she wasn’t the only being outside the norm. Long story short, a pair of Magicians were looking for Index in order to wipe her memory, with the nonsensical notion of 15% of Index’s computing code being usable for non-Grimoire data containing activities, but that turned out to be a lie given to them by the Church of Necessary Evil. The neural-coding information was inaccurate as Androids were built to reflect Human bodies, the brain included, and thus the whole 10% myth being applied to one was impossible. Granted, given that the brain in general was still a large amount of anatomical incognita despite having been studied for millenia, two Magicians with little knowledge of how brains worked being tricked wasn’t too crazy. So that was the story of why two Magicians and a robot were now living with a Metahuman polytriad.

Three new roommates and no money for food. 

That was the current situation at home right now, hence why Mikoto declared herself in charge (no enforced-multilingually-environment-infused pun intended) of their small and strange and strong little family’s economic details. As Misaka walked around the Farmer’s Market (District 11 - Agricultural Sciences, Animal Husbandry & Food Production - “The Garden”), she noticed a certain familiar face that she always hated looking into the golden eyes of, with her name being Shoukuhou Misaki. The so-called “Queen Bee” of Tokiwadai Behavioral Correction and Education Finishing Academy for Metahuman Females, or just Tokiwadai for short, and she was the unfortunate co-trafficked roommate of the Umbrella Academy that was the Number Five ranked Level Five Esper-Type Meta that Hargreeves solely wanted to have as one of his “daughters” who showed the most promise at the time. Mikoto had met her and Kuroko during that twisted time in their lives prior to Academy City, with the other children who were now their fellow Level Five (Superpower) Esper-Types, but the seven of them were lucky to leave Sir Reginald’s insanity alive.

At the time, Mikoto was designated by the Monocle as “Number Seventeen” thanks to her Meta-Gene and resulting Quirk. Kuroko was designated as “Number Eighteen” and Misaki was designated as “Number Nineteen” back then. The others were Numbers One through Sixteen, but the only one of them who made any sense to Mikoto was Number Zero, which was Touma’s designation at the time, but why the twenty of them were even given those “names” by Hargreeves was lost on the children. Back then, Misaka was Level Two (Adept) and Shirai was Level One (Deficient) when they started to undergo their unwillingly performed Meta-Gene testing. 

“Why are you here, Nineteen?” Mikoto asked as the Electric Ace took notice of the many changes in the Remote Queen’s body. Mikoto couldn’t exactly help herself from arousal as she felt her panties begin to get wet from vaginal fluids leaking from her clitoris, as her recent discovery of her bisexuality made itself clear, but she focused her heart towards her boyfriend and girlfriend and decided to save her perverted side for them to enjoy later. Refocusing on Misaki, in terms of personality instead of body, Mikoto returned to reality to hear the Remote Queen’s answer.

“Seventeen, do I really have a reason to browse through the Garden and hold a conversation with my sister in all but blood, my darling little Dolly?” Misaki answered as she started walking with Mikoto, with something in her voice making Misaka imagine Shoukuhou was calling her “Dolly” as a proper noun rather than as just a normal term of affection. Almost as if she was indeed calling Mikoto by someone else’s name. An old friend’s nickname, if Mikoto had to take a guess, although Misaki could’ve been referencing Dolly Parton as part of some inside joke shared between the Remote Queen and Touma due to their love of music. Maybe she was referencing someone else. Somebody called Dolly who must’ve been very close to her at some point in her past.

“What’s this about, Nineteen? If you’re asking me to join your clique as one of your lackeys, you know that’s not happening, no matter how many Gekota toys you offer me.”

“I just wanted to check up on my sister, that’s all, my dearest sparkling ace. That, and I’m looking for some help in studying up for our exam on Aura Theory, so would you kindly be willing to take up my offer for some tutoring?” Misaki requested as she grabbed one of her remotes and activated her Quirk.

Designation: Shoukuhou Misaki

Codename: “Remote Mind Controller”

Classification: Confirmed Positive, Category Type-01 (Esper), Level 5 (Superpower Phase)

Active Mindset Description: Subject is capable of manipulating the bodily fluids of nearby members of her own genus (Homo) within 50m of herself and is able to command them to perform actions desired by the subject. Primary fluids are those associated with the nervous system and spinal cord. Subject as shown fine control over spinal cord fluids to the point of near expertise mirroring the skills of a neurosurgeon. Further testing shows the subject to be highly effective in controlling another person’s entire body and personal abilities (if applicable) via manipulation of the brain’s chemical structures, as long as the person being manipulated by the subject has given the subject their explicit consent to be controlled by her. Subject has gained a preference for gaming consoles and television remotes as a mediumship tool, though this is more as an optional way to personally understand and categorize the broad applications of her skills rather than a requirement.

Passive State Description: Subject displays a constant Aura Field of a near invisible fog-like 1 cm thick mist from her skin via sweat glands, with yellow light being frequently refracted through the steam, especially in areas of the subject’s body most prone to sweating. (Armpits, pelvis, hands, etc.) Because of this, the subject has taken to wearing swimwear beneath her usual clothing and deodorant is often in her purses along with her remotes. Alongside this mist, which is often said by her loved ones to smell similarly to honey, the subject’s eyes have been noted to sometimes shift between a light shade of brown to a nearly golden color. Research behind this phenomenon is ongoing.

Unfortunately for Misaki, her attempts to control Mikoto failed, as Misaki’s suggestion was rejected by Mikoto, thus not allowing for any chance at controlling her. Same results as the last twenty times Shoukuhou had tried to control Misaka. What was Einstein's definition of insanity again?

“You know that I’ve learned to expect you to try that, right? If you really want my help, I suggest actually taking the time to study up on Aura Theory, without making the geniuses in your clique do the studying for you.” Mikoto insulted as she started to fill up her basket with the foods on the shopping list, which made her realize that she needed a cart instead of a basket, since she now had more than two others to shop for in addition to herself.

“Very well, my darling Dolly. I’ll take up your suggestion and discuss it with the Honeybee Clique. Can I at least return your favor by helping you out with your grocery shopping?”

“Ugh! Fine, but you’re paying for your own snacks, got it?”

“Got it.”

“Do you remember the Four E’s of Metahumanity Studies?”

“Is that even a question? Of course I remember the Four E’s! Everyone in town does.”

“Okay, then what are they?”

“Espers, Echos, Errors and Ecosystems. Too easy.”

“If they’re so easy to remember, then why not tell me what they are?”

“Simple. Espers are those of us with powers over our environment, Category One. Echos are those of us whose bodies are controlled by our environment, Category Two. Errors are those of us whose powers clash against their environment, don’t match the nature of the previous two categories or are new powers that have yet to be properly studied and categorized, Category Three. And Ecosystems are those of us whose powers have always been a part of our environment, Category Four. Does that help you any?”

“Greatly, my darling Dolly. It’ll certainly help out Junko-Chan and Ichi-Chan for our study sessions tonight. What about you these days, Mikoto-Chan? How are you and your boyfriend and girlfriend doing? Have you added a new partner to your polycule? I’ve heard that you’ve got two more lovers living with you now.”

“Magnus-Sama and Kanzaki-Sama aren’t our new partners. They’re partners to each other, yes, but they don’t want to add a third person, let alone three more, and Kuroko-Chan and Touma-Kun and I aren’t really looking for a fourth right now. Or a fifth.”

Chapter Text

Today was a day for testing Meta Abilities. The children often preferred to call their powers “Quirks” in order to calm themselves down during the experiments. It was a shared slang term that helped them collectively cope with the trauma of having been forced to awaken their abilities at a young age. Thinking of their powers as simply “quirks of their bloodlines” was rational for them all. The children who were born and raised in Academy City came up with the term and it spread throughout the newcomers. Their parents, most of whom had been teenagers, had passed down their own Meta Abilities to the children. Knowing that their little ones would ask questions about why they had inherited their powers, the young parents encouraged the idea of embracing their powers as simply “quirks of the bloodlines” as an act of unconditional love between parents and children.

Shirai Kuroko was more skeptical of referring to her Tesseract Movement ability as a mere Quirk. She was a Level Four (Master) teleportation wielder, designated as a Category Three, which meant that she was an Master-Error instead of her girlfriend’s Superpower-Esper classification nor her boyfriend’s Impotent-Error. With most of her fellow teleportation ability users, Kuroko knew that they were able to create and control portals and while she was able to do the same, her own portals were less like the typical wormholes and were more like windows into a pocket dimension. To be fair, the science regarding teleportation was still relatively newer compared to the studying of other types of Meta Abilities, so Kuroko’s skills with utilizing Tesseract Movement compared to the average Wormhole Bridge ability were considered something new to research.

During her Meta Test, Kuroko entered her Active Aura Mindset and began to calculate the length and width and timing of her portals, which was hexagon shaped with each side measuring three centimeters, the timing being three seconds between the coin being given to her and being returned to the glass jar on the other side of the small vortex thirty meters away from herself. Too easy. She wanted a challenge. A real one.

The next half of the test was a simple scanning of her Aura. Measuring her very soul was no different than getting a physical done, so she didn’t worry too much about it. In basic Aura Theory, there were seven main details to concern oneself with:

The first was the body, measured via normal means, with every body part within Human anatomy and then some being treated no differently than what would be expected. The measurement was called Muladhara and focused on the body in all its forms. For Kuroko, her Muladhara was measured as her normal pediatric details. Nothing more and nothing less.

The second was the emotions, codenamed Svadhisthana, which measured Kuroko’s empathy with herself and her surroundings. Empathizing with herself and those around her mainly manifested as her passion for justice and doing right by those surrounding her. Relatively easy.

The third was her energy, Manipura, which was measuring her Active Mindset. Kuroko’s Active Mindset was a place of what could only be described as doors and windows into various parts vastly in deep space. A pocket dimension filled with numbers measuring coordinates and geography. Entirely necessary for someone who needed to regularly calculate the when and where of creating and controlling wormholes in real time. One of those “Required Secondary Powers” types of deals. Nothing unusual.

The fourth was her Passive State, measured as Anahata, governing her health following discovering her Meta Ability. Unlike her Active Mindset, Kuroko’s Passive State simply soothed her mind as she slowed down her calculations. No portals were created when being in her Passive State, but she was still subconsciously aware of the local spacetime of her current location, which was equally necessary for her to require even without creating a portal. Made getting to classes extremely quickly much simpler, that’s for sure, portals or no portals. 

The fifth was her intelligence, measured as Vishuddha, and was a strange form of IQ test. The idea was that it was a measurement of Kuroko’s skills in her very own calculations regarding her knowledge about the Tesseract Movement ability. While a normal IQ test wouldn’t really work this way, to have a highly intimate and innate wisdom regarding one’s own Meta Ability was necessary for the studying of said Meta Ability should it manifest in the future.

The sixth was measuring Kuroko’s focusing, referred to as Ajna, and simply aided her skills in further calculating and controlling her portals without destroying local spacetime and/or collapsing her wormholes. When she had far less control over her abilities, due to both her emotional distress at the time and her general lack of training, it was frequently dangerous to even warp a single millimeter away from wherever she was standing. After having gotten to know herself a lot better since then, Kuroko had become a Master Level in just three years. The scars on her body were more than enough evidence of her progression.

The seventh and final measurement was called Saharara, which was meant to measure Kuroko’s full awareness of the aspects of her teleportation and every detail of her powers and was able to properly utilize them. When she was three years younger, Kuroko would’ve been unable to control herself if she was already a Level 04 when her Meta-Gene activated, but as she practiced and studied and perfected her abilities, Kuroko had grown to have a mutual respect for her teleportation. It felt as if the Tesseract Movement ability was alive in its own sense of the word and it wanted her to know everything that it wanted to show her.

There were naturally more advanced details that Aura Theory had but the research wasn’t available for the students to know about until they’d reach university level education. Kuroko was quite interested in studying the nature of the adaptation that all of Humanity shared post-First Contact. She knew from word of mouth that something regarding the sixth sense was related to some sort of neurotransmitters embedded into the Human brain that had been rewired somehow to make Humanity able to form far stronger packbonding skills for those within and beyond their species, but other than that, there was only so much Kuroko could learn for now.

Chapter Text

The prototype of Project Ortet was to be “born” from her Incubation Pod soon enough, about a few more days at most. To serve as the primary stock, was the DNA sample of a Superpower-Esper Meta named Misaka Mikoto, but the secondary stock was from the DNA sample of a Master-Error Meta named Shirai Kuroko, and with the two samples being randomized and grafted together to create the Grafted Units. The “daughters” who resulted from the donors’ samples being joined together and creating the newly engineered organisms. Biohacking of Sapient DNA to create Homunculi was illegal in thousands of star systems, Sol included, but the Dark Side of Academy City was making itself an exception by creating Project Ortet.

Prototype was to be aged rapidly, one year for each day, and she was to be aged normally once she reached adulthood. The process took 18 days to finish her growth on the biophysical side. The retired technology abandoned by Project Cadmus would be recycled for Project Ortet, which would give Prototype all of the mental development she’d require, as she’d be given perfect knowledge of all of Earth’s history and culture and access to everything about the details that dictated how her powers would function while she’d sleep. As for physical training in martial arts and weaponry proficiency, she’d be given in-person instruction and testing from Kihara Amata, or “Kihara-Sensei” as she grew to call him.

To test and improve her social skills, she became quite close to a “Mi-Chan” friend of hers, the title being shared between a Shoukuhou Misaki (“Tsu-Chan”) and a Kouzaku Mitori (“Ichi-Chan”), alongside a fellow Genomorph boy by the designation of Phase Gamma-Zero, who she nicknamed as “Clay” in return for being given the nickname of “Dolly” from him. The four of them would be participants in something called “Project Exterior” and each was deemed of high importance for the project’s development, but there was a catch in the discovery of Gamma-Zero’s lifespan beginning to short out, much to the panic of the girls.

Despite every attempt to save his life with medicine and cybernetics, Clay knew that he was going to die soon, and only wanted to spend the second to last day of his life with the girls that he viewed as his family. The girls he had come to view as his sisters. The girls who had adopted him as their brother. He confessed to them that he wanted to meet his progenitor, his genetic origin whom he was cloned from, but that dream would have to be put on hold for his sisters to fulfill. He told them that he wanted to see the world beyond Academy City and to see the ocean and the stars, after having grown to love the idea of knowing that those places were real, having learned about them from Misaki and Mitori. Dolly promised that she’d find some way to give her brother his wish to meet his progenitor and see the ocean and the stars, but Clay knew that he wasn’t going to be able to live to see her promise be fulfilled, knowing he didn’t have much time left. His body was failing him, but he faced his upcoming death with dignity, in spite of his sisters’ tears of grief and pain and his own fears of what would come afterwards.

Clay was not going to play with Dolly the next day. Dolly was told that he was dead. He was just like her in terms of being prototype clones. Dolly just happened to have a pair of donors instead of being directly cloned from one of her progenitors. Clay was directly the clone of his progenitor while Dolly was a binary clone. Both of them were Genomorphs created to serve their creators either way.

She was told by Kihara-Sensei that he was created to be used in something called Operation Eden and that his corpse was necessary to create the components for the rest of the Phases of Operation Eden. Despite knowing this, Dolly refused to let go of her brother, not wanting him to be taken away from her family. Sadly, Dolly wasn’t going to remember Clay for very much longer, as Mitori was forced to be controlled by Misaki, resulting in Dolly being held down to the ground by her own shadow and her memory of Clay being removed from her.

“Project Ortet Grafted Unit Prototype will no longer recall anything related to Operation Eden Phase Gamma-Zero as of 17:23, October 13th, 2018.” Misaki was reluctantly forced to command Dolly as Mitori continued to hold the Genomorph down. Both girls had tears of regret in their eyes once the order was given as Prototype was no longer able to remember her brother and could no longer identify as Dolly anymore.

Oddly, she felt the need to fulfill a promise to see the stars and the ocean outside, despite not being able to recall whom she had made that promise for. 

Prototype wouldn’t reunite with Mitori and Misaki for years to come after their brother’s death and then leaving her behind. As Prototype’s Meta Test hadn’t confirmed her to be positive for powers, she was at the time vulnerable to Misaki’s control, but once the deed was done, Prototype swiftly began to report feeling small jolts of energy flowing from her fingertips.

Now came the Meta Test, an annually preformed pediatric medical examination where a Human child between the ages of three and seventeen was placed into a playroom and given various stimuli - namely age-appropriate toys and games - that would calm the subject enough to lull them into a sense of security that allowed them to think that nobody was watching them and they’d play a typical game of pretend with their provided toys. If they tested positive for a Quirk, they’d be using their abilities as they played, whereas if they tested negative, they’d have no signs of anomalies. For Prototype, she was given several plushies and dolls to play with. As Prototype played with the toys, she felt calmed, as was to be expected of the Meta Test, and unknowingly revealed to Project Ortet and herself what her Quirk was. It was called Fractal Noise and allowed Prototype to control the electromagnetic spectrum just like her Misaka mother, but unlike her and more like her Shirai mother, Prototype was also able to teleport using Tesseract Movement, provided that she was simultaneously using her Railgun Pulse to fuel the creation of the portals, effectively meaning that Prototype could create a portal through activating static charges and control the wormholes in whatever way possible.

Unit Prototype was the proof of concept. The next step was an alpha build, with Prototype being informed that she was going to be gaining a new sister to have in place of her old ones, followed by a large family of sisters to interact with. Her job was to teach them how to use Fractal Noise until they could do it on their own. This alpha build was constructed in the same manner as her older sister, but with the difference being a tattoo on the back of her neck, with the Greek letter alpha being used to represent her designation as Unit Alpha. (Prototype was later given her own tattoo along her neck, which was the numeral “00000” written onto her skin, making her “Unit Zero” or “Rei” depending on the language being used to refer to her.) The sisters got along remarkably quickly as Prototype and Alpha bonded and became teammates for their experiments. When Unit Beta was introduced to the pair, they immediately adopted her as their new sister. Alpha and Beta would have the same abilities of their older sister, so teaching them how to use said ability was easier than expected. Unit Beta was given the Greek letter of beta for her “Mark of Designation” (as they began to call it) on the back of her neck much like Alpha’s own. For Unit Beta, she was designed to serve as essentially a living computer, in order to be something of the head of the Ortet Collective, much like a commander or mission control would be. This hive mind of sorts would be self-named as the Sister Network.

All of this in mind, the 99,999 Level Three (Expert) Sisters were ready to be released into the world after each was given her Mark of Designation and a set of randomized clothing for her to wear. Sister Units 00001-99999 were their “names”, as they themselves preferred to call them, with 1-20000 being required by their mission to stay in Academy City for the spell and the remaining 79,999 being sent out into the world to be the necessary extremely high voltage source that would be required to fuel the project. Regarding the Prototype and Units Alpha and Beta, they were given a highly important assignment to deal with known as Protocol Hexe.

Sister Unit 00001, or just Unit 1, was the very first member of the Sister Network who would be encountered by Project Accelerator. He was simply just called “Accelerator” if he wanted to let those around him be personal. He was called “Subject” during experiments or “Number One” otherwise. Unit 1 wondered to herself out loud if Accelerator even had a personal name that his family had ever given him.

“This Unit of the Sister Network designated as 1 questions the purpose behind the nature of the experiment that she is participating in alongside the Subject Unit designated as Accelerator.”

“Why do you and your sisters have to talk like that?” Accelerator asked Unit 1 as the Genomorph binary clone hesitated to grab her Toy Soldier and properly aim her sight towards the First Superpower of Academy City. Unit 1 didn’t need to use her Metal Eater, but she kept her NV goggles over her eyes, since the visor was more important to her and her sisters to better pinpoint and calculate the voltage of their electricity and the strength of their portals to utilize Fractal Noise.

Her gun suddenly levitated away from her arms and was on the ceiling of the testing room as Accelerator entered his Active Mindset. The First Superpower asked his question again, much to Unit 1’s great confusion, as she wasn’t sure how to answer him.

“This Unit designated as 1 doesn’t understand the Subject Unit designated as Accelerator’s strange query, answers this Unit as she fails to understand the purpose of this question.”

“Why do you and your sisters narrate yourselves? You’re not emotionless and your Auras are distinct between each other save for the whole hive mind thing you’ve all got. Why bother with narrating yourselves if you already share memories and have a telepathic link with your sisters at all times?” Accelerator continued as he expressed his deep confusion as to why the Sister Units felt the need to say what they were doing out loud as if they were reading stage directions while prepping for a play or film. Unit 1 was uncomfortable with the questioning, and it clearly showed on her face.

“This Unit designated as 1 is of the opinion that the Subject Unit designated as Accelerator is being highly intrusive of the Sister Network’s desired understanding of herself via each Unit’s self-narration which is utilized to download individual experiences and expressiveness into the programming of the Network. Answers this Unit designated as 1 as she just now realizes that she has just given the Subject Unit designated as Accelerator the exact answers that he was desiring from her…” 

Accelerator noticed Unit 1’s look of subtle panic as she narrated her realization. He noticed the wavering in her hexagon shaped pupils. The shaking in the bright orange jumpsuit was understandable. She was afraid of him just like the others always were. He was a young man of many titles, but he didn’t mind being called the Subject Unit designated as Accelerator by the Units of the Sister Network. There was an internal rationality behind why they were using such a method of addressing people by their family names before their given names, which wasn’t unusual for Eastern Eurasian people to use, as it was a simple modification of the pre-existing naming conventions. He learned that the Sister Network was just using that pattern to address him because they were simply used to using eastern naming conventions of [Family Name] followed by [Given Name] and were applying it to themselves in a different manner. They were a hivemind entity trying to make sense of individuality while being members of a collective. The Sister Network were all sisters to each other, which meant that they were using their designations as their own personal names, which must’ve been why they were calling him essentially “Subject Accelerator” instead of by his usual terms of being addressed.

Accelerator could easily tell that his forms of address, which had nothing to do with having a family name nor any real given name outside of his designation, was confusing them. Sadly, the First Superpower couldn’t ever recall having a family that he had been born from, let alone anything that could be called a given name that wasn’t his designation of “Project Accelerator” as far as he knew. He slid his hands beneath his shirt, feeling for his navel, remembering that he had been born from someone’s womb instead of having been created in a series of test tubes like the Genomorph girl in front of him had been. To remind himself that he had been spawned the old fashioned way. To remind himself that he had a spawning anniversary. Part of him wanted to know about his family, but he didn’t let his desire cloud his mind, as he refocused his attention onto Unit 1 and his orders to fight her from Kihara Amata. He had been ordered to test his Quirk onto the first 20,000 members of the Sister Network, in order to prepare for Protocol Hexe, but he was told to not kill them. Only to prepare the required Genomorph that was going to be created for Operation Eden Phase Six for what was going to happen to them.

Accelerator was not unfamiliar with having been forced to fight a clone before. Phase Gamma-Zero, preferably called Clay, put up one Hell of a fight, but Gamma-Zero was already dying by the time they fought and Clay gave Accelerator the wonderful name of “Yuriko” as his first and last gift for the First Superpower to possess. Accelerator never learned what happened to Clay afterwards, but knowing the Kihara Clan’s mad science amorality, probably nothing good.

Regarding his so-called “battle” with Unit 1, he ordered her to not fight him with her Toy Soldier, as he wanted to know what precisely this Fractal Noise thing he was told about by Kihara Gensei was. Sounded like the Sister Network might’ve been classified as Errors, although given their origins, they were probably Ecosystems. Given that they were made through artificial means, though, that was possibly a moot point. The same was far from true for Clay’s genetic progenitor, as he was apparently quite the Ecosystem. A revolutionary creature forged from combat and born for warfare, according to what the First Superpower had been told, but oddly enough, Clay’s progenitor had the title of “Original Superpower” just before the Four E’s were put in place last year.

The Beginning Child was known as the “Primordial Superpower” because of the nature of her Meta Ability, which was recorded sometime before the current classification system had been invented, her title having been gained due to being the very first recorded Metahuman to have their Meta Ability being properly studied and analyzed. She was able to create and/or warp entire ecosystems and alter the organisms to have them safely adapt to their newly altered biomes. If the Beginning Child was called the Primordial Superpower because of her prodigious Meta Ability, then who was the Original Superpower, and why was he called that in the first place?

Returning to the experiment, Accelerator chose to show a bit of basic empathy as he chose to stand down and surrender, but that idea failed as he and Unit 1 were ordered to continue to fight. They started with hand to hand combat, beginning with boxing and wrestling and once weapons were reintroduced to their battle, they used obsidian tipped bamboo spears. The experiment ended with Accelerator managing to use his spear to stab cleanly through Unit 1’s torso. After she was patched up from her injury, Accelerator was allowed the privilege of visiting her, albeit for only an hour.

Accelerator knew that this was only the beginning, and as much as he enjoyed a good fight from time to time, he couldn’t help but feel only a sense of wrongness regarding this new series of experiments. He felt sorry for the Sister Network for being created just for them to be used for Protocol Hexe. He felt sorry for Clay for his unknowing progenitor’s donation being weaponized. He even felt sorry for Clay’s progenitor, despite not knowing anything about the Original Superpower, but the Original Superpower must’ve been feeling something regarding his clone/son(?) by now in some form, right?

Chapter Text

Lila Rossi wasn’t lying when she said that she had noticed the strange girl with hexagon shaped pupils. She was positive about who she had met. The girl with the numbers on the back of her neck was wearing a simple outfit composed of a pair of blue skinny jeans, a pair of sandals and a tank top, but there was something about her neck tattoo (which read “08912” for some reason) that kept throwing Rossi off her game. When she went up to the girl, Lila was quick to notice her hexagon shaped pupils, and knew from the news about Superboy that she must’ve been some sort of Genomorph. Genomorph Humans were differentiated from natural Humans through their hexagon shaped pupils, since they needed to be identified in some form, didn’t they?

“Why does this individual desire to bother this Unit designated as 8912? Asks Unit Eighty-Nine Twelve as she grows annoyed and confused by this individual who is trying to bother this Unit.” The girl, apparently named Unit 8912, questioned Lila.

The Italian girl was confused by this odd speech pattern from Eighty-Nine Twelve. Were there other Units like Eighty-Nine Twelve walking around? Did she have a family of her fellow Genomorphs? Could the Units be considered a family the same way parents and children were? Fuck it, who was Lila to judge the definition of what a family was for a group of Genomorphs who had a shared origin? Of course Eighty-Nine Twelve must have a family of her fellow Genomorph Units!

“Can you understand me?” Lila asked, switching to her native Italian, mainly as both a game and a test.

“Yes, the answer of this Unit designated as 8912 speaks in an honest tone.” Eighty-Nine Twelve replied back in Italian.

“Is it alright if the Rossi Unit designated as Lila refers to Unit Eighty-Nine Twelve as Cerise from now on? Asks the Rossi Unit designated as Lila in a deep amount of curiosity.” Lila asked Unit 8912, now nicknamed as Cerise, mimicking the odd speech patterns of her new friend.

“Cerise doesn’t feel like the proper designation for this Unit designated as Eighty-Nine Twelve, this Unit designated as 8912 complains as she feels her designation given to her by the Rossi Unit designated as Lila does not fully and properly suit her as a desired redesignation.”

“Okay, then we can pick you a different reading of your number instead.” Lila offered as the two of them walked around Academy City and looked around the haberdasheries and shopping centers for clothes and books and ideas for names for Unit 8912 to choose from.

After several hours of going through the many different ways of reading the number 8912 and not feeling fully satisfied, she simply decided on sticking with her nickname of Cerise, oddly happy with having been given her name. Unbeknownst to Lila, 8912 linked her mind to the Sister Network, informing her Sisters about the idea of individualizing and creating new designations for themselves. Amazingly, Unit Beta wholeheartedly approved of the motion, and the command of “individualize” was given out to the rest of the Sister Network.

As the rest of the day went on, Sister Unit 9982 found herself a magnificent discovery: Misaka Mikoto and Shirai Kuroko in the middle of a moment of romantic affection. The mothers of the Sister Network! They were real! They were alive and in the flesh and in her excitement, Unit 9982 promptly teleported in front of them with one minute and seven seconds (01:07) as she utilized Fractal Noise to make the air surrounding her body into a vortex that she could submerge her body through and within the 20m distance between the three of them. Of course, that was second nature to the Sister Unit designated as 9982, as Fractal Noise was for all of the Sister Network. Thankfully, Unit 9982 was smart enough to teleport herself with her clothing and prosthetic left leg this time, as she had a habit of breaking the disability aid and/or leaving them behind whenever she’d teleport, but on the plus side, the experiences of damaging her prosthetic made her really good at designing and building and repairing and maintaining her future left legs. The very first time she found herself needing a new leg was when she had miscalculated her very first activation of Fractal Noise and had lost her original left leg from the patella downwards by having teleported straight into a brick wall.

Returning her attention to her mothers, 9982 quickly hugged her genetic progenitors, and why wouldn’t she want to show them her love for them? They were her family’s origins; the reasons behind her entire existence. They were her mothers and she was one of their daughters and she couldn’t contain herself in showing them her love for them! 

This display of joy was quickly met with Mikoto zapping 9982 in a mix of surprise and discomfort, but this attack was just as quickly repelled like the shared polar ends of a magnet, which made 9982’s Fractal Noise fully known to the Electric Ace and the Bringer of Judgement. 9982 didn’t understand why her mother was rejecting her, which then made her cry in her upset, which quickly concerned Kuroko who decided to give 9982 the Gekota button that she was originally planning to give to her girlfriend to one of her daughters, despite not yet being told about the Sister Network.

“It’s okay, it’s okay. No need to cry. Here ya go! Does that make you feel any better, sweetie?” Kuroko said in a calming tone as she gave her daughter the button, Unit 9982 holding her new gift in her possession, smiling as her mother dried her tears.

“It does, this Unit designated as 9982 answers as her sorrow turns to gratitude upon being granted ownership of her new button, even if she views it as childish but adorable.”

“Gekota is for all ages, firstly, and secondly, who are you?” Mikoto asked as she examined the young lady in front of her.

“This Unit designated as 9982 is simply the Sister Network’s singular Unit designated as Serial Number 09982 which is tattooed onto the back of her neck, answers this Unit designated as 9982 towards her mothers whose genetic donations were utilized and modified to create this Unit designated as 9982 and her fellow members of the Sister Network.”

Both girls looked like they were about to have their eyes pop out of their heads upon hearing that. Kuroko was looking as if she was about to faint while Mikoto felt like she was going to puke. How in the world did they now have at least 9,982 daughters resulting from their donations? Touma was gonna love hearing this, as was the rest of the Delta Squad, if they didn’t pass out from shock first. Wait, was it right to call the Sister Network their daughters or was calling them their siblings more accurate? Daughters felt more accurate in this context somehow. Unit 9982 and the rest of the Network were all basically sisters to each other and genetically speaking, it wasn’t inaccurate to refer to themselves as their mothers, their young ages notwithstanding. 

Damn this was going to be hard to explain. Unit 9982 didn’t explain the reasoning as to why she and her sisters were created, other than saying that they were “made to prepare someone important” and left them using Fractal Noise, not bothering to explain to her mothers what that meant. She only told them that she was “one of the 20,000 out of the 100,000 of [their] daughters who needed to stay in Academy City” and nothing else.

That number quickly resulted in Kuroko fainting and Mikoto forcing herself to swallow back down her own vomit as both of them tried to make sense of what they were learning. They had just learned that they were, genetically speaking, the mothers of their 100,000 binary clones/technically daughters. They had just learned that their daughters were being used for an experiment beyond their control.

Were their offspring going to be killed?

Chapter Text

Today was a day for the usual injections of Compound Vitae, and for some reason, Touma was feeling nervous about getting the expected shots. Despite knowing that it was going to feel no different from a normal vaccination that would boost his immune system, Touma just felt scared of any backlash that he knew could easily happen, with any newly discovered allergic reactions to the “Blue Shots” being the least of his worries. A Blue Shot wasn’t like a normal vaccine. Blue Shots weren’t just for the immune system to prepare the body for infections, although that was a positive side effect, since it would still be detected by those important blood cells by default.

The Blue Shots were for the development studies of Meta Abilities and how to predict the epigenetics involved in how they operated and expressed themselves. The Blue Shots were called by the adults as Compound Vitae, or sometimes just Compound V, because they were intended to lengthen the lifespan of young Metas whose Quirks were often activated through traumatic situations. That was the original purpose of the Blue Shots prior to being properly named and continued to be used. At least now the children would be given their Blue Shots professionally through the skilled and careful hands of the pediatricians in charge of their medical needs rather than the unpredictable and miscalculating hands of their traffickers who might not have had any proper medical training to work with children’s needs.

A Blue Shot followed by a blood test was nothing unusual by now. Why was Touma feeling so nervous after having had three years to get used to the procedure? Was it because the Blue Shots were once upon a time street drugs turned prescription medicine? There was a good reason to be scared of the Blue Shots because of that questionable ethical discovery.

“Touma-Kun, you know that you need to stay still. The Blue Shot will hurt you more if you keep squirming.” The pediatrician who was often nicknamed by the children as “Dr. Froggy” due to his frog shaped face scolded Touma as the boy flinched and began to hyperventilate in his panic. Dr. Froggy was trained not just in pediatrics, but child psychology as well and knew that 60% of the student body of Academy City had arrived into the town through trafficking and abandonment more so than by choice unlike the remaining 20% of the children who were born and raised in the city or the 20% who arrived willingly, so witnessing post-traumatic stress in the children’s reactions to anything medically related was nothing new to him.

It was highly unfortunate, yes, but to witness the children coping and thriving beyond their pain was a daily joy. Dr. Froggy was proud to bear his playful nickname and Touma was willing to stay as still as he could. These shots were monthly, after all, so being nervous shouldn’t have been happening. Every first of the month. Today was January 1st, 2019, so this would be the first Blue Shot out of twelve.

Touma stayed very still, Dr. Froggy counted to three, then it was done. The next heartbeat in Touma was the normal explosive burst of energy surging through his body right down to the nucleus at the center of every one of his cells, with the color of his irises temporarily changing wildly between the visual spectrum before returning to normal, as was the common reaction to be expected from the Blue Shot’s powers. He immediately felt Power Breaker becoming immensely surged in strength. The Blue Shot was created to enhance and improve the rawness of a Meta Ability, since it started out as a knockoff of the Super Soldier Serum, dating back to the 1960’s and infamously used for myriad governments to try and create Superpowers. Nowadays, there were knockoffs of the knockoff, with the most well-known one being something called Bloodshot.

Political powers in exchange for superpowers. It was why the Blue Shot was a street drug to begin with. Power was often called a drug. It only made sense to compare the concepts of politics to drug addiction. Politicians were, to every last one of the children of Academy City, all equally heartless because what good were they if they never cared about them outside of useless numbers? What good were numbers if actions spoke louder than words? Politicians were useless because they were all blind and heartless and did nothing. Teachers and doctors were far better loved by the children of Academy City, because they actually proved themselves to be trustworthy to them and actually gave a damn about them.

Chapter Text

Kihara Enshuu had to be honest with herself.

What the fuck was she looking at right now?

She knew from Uncle Amata and Aunt Theresina and Great-Uncle Gensei that Operation Eden Phase Gamma-Zero was supposed to be dead. Why and how was he still alive?! The boy was fully submerged in the amber fluid with no life support to help him not drown in it, so how was he still breathing?! The chamber was sealed airtight, with the plexiglass being five centimeters thick, so where did that large crack come from?!

Enshuu knew within seconds that this mystery was the reason why she was brought in.

Person of Interest: Kihara Enshuu

Classification: Category 02_Level 03 (Echo-Master)

Meta Ability Designation: Archetype Memorial Library

Description: Kihara Enshuu’s Archetype Memorial Library allows the telepath in question to perfectly mirror the brainwave networks and neuron connections of any Humans and/or Half-Human Hybrids within eyesight and earshot and precisely replicate their thought patterns and anything related to their physical and mental capabilities. However, this does not include abilities that require different physiological forms nor any preexisting training that would be necessary for certain learned skills to be properly utilized, such as martial arts training that would be too straining for her body type or literacy in foreign languages unfamiliar to the subject.

Entering the Active Mindset, Enshuu chose to read his mind, mainly because she could feel his Aura and knew that he was within the same species as herself. She could feel his soul being constantly projected from his body as she received his patterns. He was trying to warn someone he loved about something big about to happen, but Enshuu could only know that the person Gamma-Zero was trying to reach was too far away for him to speak to. One half of the pair jointly known as the Original Superpower was his progenitor, but they had already graduated three years early since they had the highest IQ of Academy City’s Class of ‘18 at the age of fifteen. Impressive, but nothing abnormal to be expected from the Superpowers of Academy City, only seven of whom were known. The Original Superpower set the bar for future Superpowers to follow. The Seven Superpowers of Academy City surpassed the expectations that the Original Superpower had set. The Primordial Superpower never had the chance to dream about such a thing occurring amongst her fellow Metahuman kind. Of course, as the current system didn’t exist during her lifetime, the Beginning Child wouldn’t have known about the concept of SYSTEM and the idea of an Apotheosis Event. 

The concept of a Human body becoming able to perceive the calculations of God was how Apotheosis Events happened, but the only naturally occurring way for something of that scale was through Demigods. As Demigods were nearly impossible to discover and study the genetics of in the 21st Century, the very life of Gamma-Zero wasn’t expected to even arrive. The very nature of Operation Eden wasn’t supposed to become real until Academy City, by some bizarre coincidence, had discovered a certain pair of twins who became co-designated as the Original Superpower. Of course, the twins never said out loud what they actually were, but to the Kihara Clan it was obvious as soon as the blood was sampled. Gensei had technically lied to one of them in order to get his bone marrow by simply saying exactly that Academy City wanted to use his DNA for Metahuman epigenetics research, but didn’t specify that he was going to be cloned, which was now they managed to succeed in their goal without either brother ever once becoming aware of the true ramifications of what they had done through the generous donation.

Now, months after the Original Superpower’s bone marrow donation was used to create Gamma-Zero, who lived for a short lifespan of five months following the Class of ‘18 graduation in June, with the clone being “born” on the 13th of that same month and “dying” on October 13th of that same year, Kihara Enshuu had expected herself to be in front of a dead-for-four-months old corpse of a biophysically seventeen years old clone. Only, he was still alive and fully aware of everything around him, and acutely aware of Enshuu’s presence as well as her Kihara Clan blood. To Enshuu’s horror and surprise, Gamma-Zero managed to open his eyes, revealing that his sight hadn’t been compromised somehow and that he could look around him as the crack in his tank was starting to grow. Gamma-Zero’s heart suddenly began to beat again despite the organ having already been dissected from his body the day he died. Gamma-Zero’s body was somehow regrowing his already long discarded organs with the boy showing no signs of pain or discomfort. The look on his face simply said that he was more curiously fascinated by the capabilities of his newly regrowing body.

It’s as if he already knows that he can regenerate! He knows this to be an instinctual activity, doesn’t he? His brain was never removed, which might explain how his brain activity never shut down post-mortem, even after the rest of his organs and prosthetics had been removed and stored away. If he knows how useful he’s going to become, then perhaps he’s willing to cooperate with what he was made for after all. Enshuu thought to herself as she observed the same event as her fellow Kiharas did.

Switching from her Passive State into the Active Mindset, Enshuu focused her attention onto the brainwave patterns of Phase Zero, learning very quickly of his insatiable bloodlust and desire to enter the nearest battlefield. His pure love of war rapidly infected her mind as she continued mimicking his. It was so much to handle as his mind rushed into her head. She didn’t know if she even could handle the newly exploding insanity of passionate combativeness let alone survive the power of the shock. By some miracle, Enshuu didn’t go insane, but instead, she was enlightened by her newfound knowledge.

The calculations of a deity were real. This Homunculus Genomorph in front of her was a natural at comprehending the sheer power of the mental speed needed to safely use those calculations without going mad. The Original Superpower’s brains were estimated to process all information with them at roughly 100,000 times faster than what would be expected of a Human’s average speed of brain activity even while asleep. It was shown on their MRI scans that their brains were so actively thinking that the false colors used to image the scans were impossible to decipher thanks to how blurred the colors ended up becoming. The same was true for their System Scans, with their Auras being impossible to measure, regardless of which of the seven standard measurements beyond Mul. being completely unreadable. The Original Superpower’s physiologies were, quite literally, off the charts right down to their genetics. The only thing about them that made any bit of rational sense was the fact that they were a pair of monozygotic twin brothers, which was nothing abnormal, which made everything else about them terrifying to study and comprehend. Enshuu was fully aware of the details about the Original Superpower having their shared strangeness but had forgotten that it was obvious that a clone of one of them would’ve inherited that same instinctual enlightenment. 

The fact that she could even comprehend such raw instincts at all without her mind just downright shattering into pieces was a miracle.

Kihara Enshuu, can you hear me? A voice inside her head began to boom through her mind in order to communicate with her. She knew from recordings that the voice belonged to Gamma-Zero who naturally inherited the same vocal patterns as both members of the Original Superpower. Enshuu had communicated via telepathy before, obviously since she was a telepath herself, but she never had someone’s mind be inside of her own with this much force in another’s mental voice before.

Yes, I can hear you. Am I speaking out loud?

You are not, Enshuu-chan. We’re merely having a conversation inside both our minds. Where’s Dolly-imouto? Where are Mitori-nee and Misaki-nee? Where is my family? I know you have their patterns in your library, Kihara-sama, so where are my sisters?! I will break you and rewrite your brainwaves unless you tell me exactly where my family went! Gamma-Zero threatened in his worried panic and mixed emotions clouding his judgment as Enshuu sharply felt a sudden agonizing migraine beyond anything she could compare.

I can’t tell you that information, Gamma-Zero. I don’t know where they are! Please! Stop hurting me with this migraine! Please, read my soul and you know that I’m not trying to hurt yours! Enshuu begged as she projected her Aura and revealed her soul to Gamma-Zero, the pain immediately subsiding and the migraine soothing out as the clone realized that she was telling him the truth, which was the simple fact that she genuinely didn’t know where his loved ones currently were. He projected his soul in return and calmed down enough to resume their discussion.

It was interesting to learn that clones had souls.

I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to hurt you like that, Enshuu-chan. I just want to know if my family’s safe.

I’m afraid that I don’t know anything about your family. There's nothing I can tell you.

Then why are you trying to be useful to me when you know that I can destroy you?

Because my family and I still find you useful for our plans. We created you and we can give you a new family to play with, but we need your consent in order to use your body so we can create your siblings.

You mutilated my corpse to incest rape me?!

NO! Good Lord, absolutely not! Wrong kind of concept here and not the kind of consent I was referring to! Medical consent! Not sexual consent! We need your medical consent because the laws of our homeworld have changed in response to the Sister Network’s public debut on New Year’s Day and any cloning experiments require the full medical consent of the donors involved and/or their legal guardians if the donor is a minor. As you were created the year before those laws were created, and you never had any guardians, we’re legally obligated to ask you regardless. January 1st also doubles as the legal spawning anniversary of your Imouto-tachi, which includes Rei, er, Dolly as you knew her by.

Sister Network? Wait, Dolly-imouto got her name changed? Why does Dolly-imouto go by Rei now?! Did something change?

The crack in the tank started to grow larger as Gamma-Zero began to curl himself up into the fetal position. He was still technically a baby, wasn’t he? Despite his biological age of eighteen years, he was only chronologically eight months old, with his younger mind’s subconscious behavior being proof of that fact in spite of his older body regardless of how well functioning the Testament machines were alongside the G-Gnomes helping out as teachers.

“Enshuu-chan, what’s wrong with him? Why is he so panicked?” Uncle Amata asked in concern for their pet project. He may have only seen Gamma-Zero as just another specimen, but he was concerned enough for his creation’s safety to notice when the clone was distressed.

“He’s worried about his family.” Enshuu answered out loud as she reached out her hand and gently pressed it up against the tank’s outer plexiglass. She avoided the deepening cracks as she did so while Gamma-Zero reached out and mirrored her actions from inside his tank’s inner plexiglass walls. He projected his mind into hers as she received his message in response to her own. A shared silent agreement between them. A deal was quietly sealed between themselves regarding their respective families. Operation Eden Phase Gamma-Zero allowed for his body to be used by her in creating his new siblings while Kihara Enshuu vowed to bring Dolly back to him no matter how vile the methods were going to be.

Chapter Text

Tsurugi Kagami and Lila Rossi had a history between themselves. It was obvious to the Delta Squad’s members. Aogami Pierce could tell that there was something off, and it wasn’t just because of how skilled Lila was in her quite impressive storytelling. Pierce knew himself to be a decent storyteller, even having playfully competed against Lila a few times to find himself impressed by her skills, but she never once detailed why exactly Kagami hated her with such a passionate fury. The reverse perspective was also equally true as Kagami also refused to detail anything regarding her hatred of Rossi and her lies.

Regarding Lila’s love of storytelling, given that myriad psionic types of people were literally impossible to lie to, the only way one could do so without getting their minds broken into pieces and rewritten automatically was to find a way to withhold information. Lila was honest in knowing she was just telling fun stories, which allowed for her to be able to exploit a loophole of sorts that she could’ve discovered and knowing that she was simply storytelling wasn’t going to throw your average psychic person off their game. What was throwing the mind readers and their kin off base was how disturbingly good at withholding information Lila was when it came to her storytelling. Everyone in Aca-City had the feeling that she was hiding something from all of them but couldn’t pinpoint what exactly the withheld information was to begin with. This was a detail that only Kagami knew and for everyone else to find out.

“What are you hiding, Rossi-san?” Aogami asked in very rough Italian as he struggled with his words and got his honorifics inaccurate, and his grammar mixed up. Lila seemed to have a general comprehension as to what Pierce was asking her, even if she was a bit confused as to why his Italian was all over the place regarding past tense and present tense.

“Nothing I haven’t told you before, Aogami-sama.” Rossi replied back in Japanese. Aogami noticed her extreme fluency in Japanese to be far too perfect in a way that only native speakers of the language would’ve far too easily noticed if they knew they were talking to a non-native speaker. Lila had the same precision that a native speaker would naturally have. Her knowledge of French was the same way. Granted, one of her moms was an ambassador for Italy, which made Lila’s fluency in multiple languages unsurprising. The same was true for one of her mothers having taught her how to utilize multiple forms of various sign languages, as one of her moms was deaf, and would’ve obviously taught her daughter to comprehend those manual languages as well as having her learn spoken ones. This knowledge was both useful and useless, Pierce realized, but he was clever with his words just as well as Rossi was. Being a psychic was certainly a useful thing when it came to expertly learning a new language.

“If you think you’re the first person who believes that they can expose me for my lies, Aogami Pierce, then you’ve got another enemy on your bad side now. Just as I do once more.” Lila softly warned in disturbingly perfect Japanese as she backed Aogami into a literal corner and began to whisper into his ears, slowly moving her head between both sides of his.

What was this vixen? Was Lila some kind of Yokai-like being? A foul-hearted Kitsune wearing a Human’s skin? Was she the Devil in Human form? If so, what kind of Devil was she?

“What is the Rossi Unit designated as Lila trying to do with the Aogami Unit designated as Pierce right now by backing him into a corner? This Unit designated as Sister 10031 questions as she observes this event in front of her while she searches for the Kamijou Unit designated as Touma.”

Aogami gave himself a brief chance to breathe as Rossi once again told a clever lie. A cleverly spoken lie in Italian. A clever lie that Unit 10031, and by extension the Sister Network, clearly didn’t believe as they comprehended the spoken Italian they were listening to. Whatever Lila just told 10031 and her massive number of siblings that couldn’t exist alongside her through natural means due to the limited number of eggs that their mothers would’ve allowed to conceive and bare children, Aogami didn’t understand Italian very well and something must’ve gotten lost in translation, but it was obvious that 10031 and her siblings didn’t once seem to believe her.

“We do not believe these clever lies you’ve always told, Lila Rossi. You cannot lie to us. We are not the type of being that you can think you can tell lies towards. If you try to lie to us again, Lila Rossi, remember that this is our only warning for you.” Unit 10031 scolded politely as the Sister Network themselves collectively spoke through her to Lila as Pierce watched in complete fearful silence. Her lips were moving in Italian to Rossi’s eyes. Her words were in Japanese to Aogami’s ears. Aogami and Rossi were both completely afraid.

The Sixth Superpower had never witnessed anything like this before in his life.

Chapter Text

A bright indigo glow entered the room as Felix witnessed Halo arrive through their boom tube portal. Felix was confused and so was Halo. Felix, despite not knowing what was happening, at the very least managed to head to the kitchen to grab his guest some snacks. It was the least he could do. After all, even if she had teleported, someone with teleportation powers might still want to have themselves a good meal.

“Who are you?” Felix asked Halo as he repeated the question, speaking slowly in case she didn’t speak English or French. To his surprise, Halo was fluent in both languages, alongside Arabic and some alien language called Old God Tongue, the latter of which Halo didn’t know the origins of as she didn’t know until just now that she even knew she could understand it. The language came from somewhere known as New Genesis and was the language of the New Gods. Whoever these New Gods were, Halo didn’t know anything about them beyond their language and name, let alone why they called themselves gods to begin with.

“Do you want to use my portals to go to New Genesis?” Halo asked as they noticed her Aura still glowing indigo.

Knowing all of the yelling going on between his mum and his uncle and aunt, Felix, for a number of reasons he didn’t feel comfortable talking about, agreed to go anywhere but Paris with Halo. They discussed the idea of going to New Genesis, but that felt way too many jumps from Earth. They soon discussed going to a different planet. That discussion led into them simply talking about the recently killed Mad Titan and a talk about superheroes and the like. This swiftly led into a talk about Felix someday attending university in Academy City.

Halo soon opened a portal to Academy City to try and give themselves a free tour of the Shimmering City of Science. The boom tube portal swiftly found itself suddenly being essentially hijacked by what could only be called the shattering of a tesseract as Halo sharply felt what she could refer to later as several voices speaking as one being trying to defend themselves. A sort of immune system-like structure as Halo became considered something infectious akin to a virus.

By the time the duo managed to reach their location, Halo and Felix did end up in Aca-City, but the city-state was no longer on Earth. As it turned out, Aca-City wasn’t just a city. The Shimmering City of Science was, to the complete shock of everyone in both the town and back on Earth, constructed to function for its intended purpose as a starship for the colonization of exoplanets that would be safe for Humans and Martians to jointly live on. Aca-City was planned to become a prototype for this purpose and now it was time for the idea of a starship city to be put to the test as the Shimmering City of Science began to float in no general direction as it found itself in the middle of the Andromeda Galaxy. Thankfully, there were Guardians taking notice, with the head of Knowhere taking Aca-City into its orbit.

Chapter Text

Sister Unit 10032 wanted to feel nervous about performing the relocation spell in order to activate Aca-City’s base programming. “Wanted” being the keyword in this context, but she couldn’t alter anything regarding her own base programming, just like the rest of her siblings within the Network were equally unable to alter their code. They could only receive orders typed into their code, and like any computer program, the only thing that they could do about it was to follow them to the letter.

They did so, obeying their programming, and the mission began earlier than expected as Units 00001 through 20000 activating Fractal Noise all in one go proved far more powerful than originally programmed and effective than initially expected. Instead of a simple test run, the test run overwhelmed the Sister Network as they collectively mass teleported all of Academy City into the Andromeda Galaxy, which was entirely unplanned. Apparently being made with the DNA of the Third Superpower instead of a lower-level Meta gave the Sister Network a stronger than expected jolt of strength regarding their Quirk. Now they were in space.

“What the fuck did we just do?! This Unit designated as 10032 swears and asks towards nobody in particular as she begins to panic!”

Chapter Text

It was all a difficult transition from being on Earth to suddenly being among the stars and living in Knowhere. The Shimmering City of Science was incorporated into the domain of the Guardians of the Galaxy as they claimed the town as part of their territory. They kind of had to, since there wasn’t really anybody else willing to try and dare to make some degree of sense of the situation. Everything was hard to explain, and details kept getting lost in translation as the Principality of Academia began to become its own realm.

Currently, after the past three Earth months of crazy began to start settling down, Hokaze Junko was casually grabbing some snacks from her favorite Gekota-themed vending machine. There was going to be an election for who exactly was going to represent Aca-City in general and while Earth’s laws wouldn’t have allowed for children to vote, the current situation absolved that limitation, because Earth laws no longer applied to Aca-City anymore. The win conditions for the election were very poorly defined but the end result was that each District was now going to have its own laws and be independent of each other for a good while. They would still collectively identify as one country of sorts, naturally, but it was going to take some time for the districts to create a unified government system.

Junko thought over her vote as she watched her ($Y)200 bill get eaten by the vending machine. Channelling Misaka Mikoto’s method of kicking the stupid thing in her anger only served to break the box and shake its contents up. As the contents for today were mostly room temperature served drinks, primarily juice boxes, this idea just made the issue worse as the machine began to crackle with electricity and short circuit.

Chapter Text

“My partner and I would like a room to ourselves please.” The Human albino young man said as he and his female partner, also Human, found their way into the motel.

“Do you have a reservation? I can’t give you and your partner a room without a prior reservation.” The Necrofriggian receptionist replied as they saw a slight glow in the female’s eyes. The next thing they knew was that their desktop began to go on the fritz and that they needed to go and get a software programmer. Following their desktop going to shit was the sudden blackout in the lobby and the sounds of running footsteps, further followed by their desktop returning to normal and the power in the lobby, as well as the couple becoming long gone.

Room 93 was a hardly ever reserved room of the motel, but that didn’t stop room maintenance from regularly taking care of it, as that was their job after all. It didn’t stop Accelerator and Unit Omega from stealing it for themselves to use for the night in order to get out of the rain.

“What now?” Accelerator asked as he and Omega settled down into their new room. Unlike her Sisters, Omega was composed of a different half, with Misaka Mikoto still being her mother, but a different donor was her other parent. She shared her Misaka mother’s brown hair and her sisters’ EM spectrum manipulation capabilities, but had brown skin and eyes of black sclera with dark violet irises, most likely from her other parent. Another thing she had inherited from her other half was her taste for combat, as she couldn’t go a single day without the desire to fight, and her constant victories often resulted in her devouring her opponents’ hearts or equivalent. Literally her whole life was to be a creature of bloodlust and battle, having been created for cyberwarfare and weaponization, which was why Accelerator was brought in as a way to control and “tame” her. Unfortunately, the plan worked a little too well and they teamed up and escaped Academy City just before the town was launched into space.

Now they had used the few files that they had to learn of Omega’s other donor’s whereabouts and who they were. They had learned that Omega’s other donor was a male from the Philippines who was a Metahuman designated alongside his brother by the shared codename of the Original Superpower, which revealed where Omega had gained her own capabilities from, but that didn’t explain her bloodlust or hunger for hearts or love for fighting. None of those details had come from Misaka Mikoto, but she was in space now with the first 20,000 of her daughters, so Omega and Accelerator were now taking a road trip to Mainland Eurasia to find and meet Omega’s basically father instead. Why this gentleman’s DNA was specifically required to create Omega and how his sample was collected without him knowing about Project Ortet were the fuel for questions that Omega partially desired to ask her “father” (for a lack of anything else to call him), but knowing that there was probably no chance of him being able to give her anything resembling an answer, she went against that idea. Since her “father” was a minor at the time his sample was harvested, only his first name and last initial were utilized, most likely for privacy concerns. Of course, hacking into the records for his family name was easy for Omega to do, which led her to discovering the name of Basilio Riviera. With the name in place, and despite the lack of a face, she would do everything in her power to find her father.

Of course, before they’d leave for the nearest airport to take a zeppelin southward, they speculated on a pair of proper names to use for their new life outside of their codenames and designations. Accelerator settled on Suzushina Yuriko, despite Yuriko being a female name, but he didn’t care much for gender roles. Omega decided to use Suzushina Ramona as her new name, though she wasn’t sure as to why she picked that name other than the fact that being called Ramona just felt right somehow. The name just felt familiar to her and she went with it. Had she used it in a past life once? Was it the name of an ancestor of hers that she was unknowingly honoring? Genetic memory passed down from one of her donors who had an ancestor by that specific given name?

“This Unit originally designated as Omega and now known as Ramona still wishes to meet her father, but other than that plan, this Unit has nothing else to refer to as her newly self-assigned mission. The Sister Network is currently offline and this Unit is unable to give and receive information from her Sisters through it. This lack of constant information being inside of this Unit’s mind greatly frightens this Unit, which is something new that this Unit never believed was possible. But now that this Unit knows what it feels like to be alone and without the Sister Network, this Unit feels as if she has been lifted off of the ground and finds comfort in becoming no longer a Grafted Unit of the Ortet Collective. This Unit self-designated as Ramona wants to see the parts of the planet designated Earth that she wasn’t previously assigned to by the Sister Network alongside the Suzushina Unit self-designated as Yuriko. That is, if the Suzushina Unit self-designated as Yuriko desires to join this Unit self-designated as Ramona?”

Ramona was surprised by Yuriko replying to her proposal to travel together with a kiss on the lips but quickly surprised him back with a small bite onto his. Not in any vengeful sense, nor a predatory one, but merely a playful lust that could quickly heal. Yuriko’s blood was of the typical metallic sting expected alongside a sanguine humor in his taste. Sanguine but strangely melancholic. His bloody kiss tasted as if he was hiding something from her. She could taste that he had something to hide, but until further notice, she tried to ignore her suspicions despite the bittersweet taste.

Unbeknownst to the couple, Accelerator’s relationship with Omega was being watched and reported by the Sister Network in the form of Units Prototype, Alpha and Beta, who were assigned to their mission and discussing plans of their own to see if Protocol Hexe would enter the Opening Stage.

“Why is Sister Unit designated as Omega being permitted to escape from Academy City with Project Accelerator? This Unit designated as Beta asks in confusion regarding what the purpose of the Sister Unit designated as Omega is searching for beyond the goals of Protocol Hexe.”

“The goals of Protocol Hexe are of a currently classified nature, even to the knowledge of the Sister Network, which is something that the Sister Network is currently researching, reminds this Unit designated as Alpha towards the Sister Unit designated as Beta in a scolding tone of voice.”

“The Sister Unit designated as Prototype demands that the Sister Units designated as Alpha and Beta to hush up and get into bed and go to sleep, because this Unit designated as Prototype’s wristwatch is reading twenty-two hundred hours and is aware of the requirement shared by the physical bodies of these three Units!”

With no more words left to say between the trio, Units Prototype, Alpha and Beta went to bed. Alpha and Prototype fell asleep rather quickly, but Beta couldn't help but find herself flooded with worry regarding Omega’s future and the outcome of Protocol Hexe once the Apotheosis Event would eventually be activated. As more and more concerns entered Beta’s mind, the Sister Network began to send messages of their own various concerns regarding her, suggesting that things would become a bit easier on Beta’s nerves to simply use Fractal Noise to check on Omega while she slept. 

This was voted by Beta to be the best move as she got up from the recliner chair she was sleeping on and used her Quirk to turn the bathroom door into a portal from her room and entered Room 93 through the room’s own bathroom door. It would be in there where Beta would see Project Accelerator and Sister Unit Omega, sharing the same bed, simply sleeping in their clothes and cuddling up together. No signs of sexual activities had occurred, it seemed, which made sense as the Sister Network in its entirety was built to be infertile to prevent inbreeding-related genetic disasters between potential descendants. Their eggs weren’t meant for potency, but didn’t stop them from ovulating and the resulting requirements of the hormones produced for their bodies, as their bodies still needed estrogen in order to be created into a female build. Granded, there were a number of other factors involved in their creation, namely the fact that their genetic template designated Misaka Mikoto and their genetic donor designated as Shirai Kuroko were both individuals that just so happened to be born with the typical Human genomic XX sex chromosomes from their conceptions and gestations onwards and identified as females of the cisgendered variety since birth, but that was neither here nor there.

Beta, for some strange reason was beginning to feel something that she didn’t quite understand, just felt that she needed to protect Omega from Protocol Hexe in some form, even if she had no idea what exactly Protocol Hexe was supposed to be. Perhaps that withdrawn data was the reason why Beta felt the need to protect Omega from Protocol Hexe.

Chapter Text

2019

That first year was a difficult one for the Academics of Knowhere. That wasn’t surprising. There was so much to take in and so much to learn and to repair and rebuild as they all became something new.

2020

Tsukuyomi Kamoe was reading up on the history of Gnosticism and the structure of the Kabbalah when she began to cross reference the notes she was taking on them to her research on the nature and purpose of the Level Six experiments. She noticed the eerie similarities as her studying drove her to discover the origins of the Absolute Level as she learned of the concept of Gnosis and the connection between the two ideas. It terrified her as she was reminded of her and Quill’s discussion about Ego and his attempted expansion and the research the two of them did regarding everything they could learn about Celestials.

It made her kind of happy that the Celestial whose head she now called home was long decapitated. However, that knowledge wasn’t exactly a good thing to think about, as it raised the question of what exactly can kill a god if one born from artificial means can also find themselves murdered. How that worked wasn’t something that Tsukuyomi refused to allow herself to be reminded that she was living in such a cosmic horror story on a daily basis just for one moment. Horror just creates more layers as she considers these bits of nightmares fueling her mind.

2021

Kagami and Felix’s first real date was, in the politest way to put it, disastrous and making it a double date between themselves and Ruiko and Kazari didn’t make it less so. Not many could say that it made sense and way too much underage drinking was involved. Long story short, superpowers and alcohol weren’t meant to mix, if the resulting indoor fire tornado blizzard thing was anything to go by.

Kazari’s thermokinesis did blend quite beautifully with Ruiko’s aerokinesis, at least in terms of combat and welding and farming, but not very well when both were intoxicated. Kagami could quietly tell herself that she was glad that she wasn’t Ryuko and drunk enough to be foolish enough to use the Dragon Miraculous’ Storm Dragon powers. Otherwise, the problem would’ve become far worse. Whether or not a Kwami could get drunk was a different question entirely. Could gods even get drunk?

2022

Sister Unit 10777 and Sister Unit 10046 were playing hopscotch when they remembered how to play Welters from their Brakebills International Factional siblings and decided to innocently combine the two games. There wasn’t any real reasoning behind it as it was mainly for fun as they played their Hopscotch Welters. Their silly little game caught on with the little ones who watched them play and they wanted to join in, despite Meta-Magicians being unable to cast spells beyond their Meta-Discipline, but it wasn’t discouraged as Hopscotch Welters began to evolve and grow.

2023

Motoharu wasn’t a stranger to flirting with girls. He was quite used to it, as long as he wasn’t flirting with anyone underage, he was good. He mainly preferred girls around his age in general anyways. HIs partner in lady flirting, however, preferred all sorts of ladies. Thankfully, Pierce wasn’t (enough of) an idiot to break the law, as he had the same age standards as his friend did.

Their current plan was attempting to flirt with, of all people on Knowhere, the Guardian known as Nebula. Out of every female they could’ve chosen, they chose one of the several ladies in their hometown who explicitly didn’t wanna have anything to do with romanticism nor sexual activities of any sort. While she was quite beautiful, and Nebula could roughly understand why some would see beauty when they looked at her, she wasn’t the type to be flirty. Unsurprisingly, Motoharu and Pierce’s efforts at wooing Nebula went about as well as one would expect.

2024

“Do you love me?” Zak asked her as he laid down on the same bed as Wadi did, his hands intertwined with hers, both sharing a quiet look between themselves.

“What kind of question is that? Of course I love you.” Wadi answered as she caressed his face. There was a silently spoken joy in her as she and Zak both smiled at each other.

Halo removed her Green Aura and stopped watching Wadi’s memories. They still didn’t know how to feel about the fact that, despite being a completely different person from her predecessor, they still weren’t sure as to how or why they still recorded Wadi’s memories inside their Green Aura. Why did they have these memories at all and why did she keep them?

2025

The Christmas party was weirder than normal this year. To be fair, not many people could say with a straight face that they kidnapped Kevin Bacon as a holiday gift. Okay, maybe a few, but still.

2026

The craziness of the High Evolutionary and his madness breaking into Knowhere was unexpected. Even more unexpected was Rocket’s origins and the horrors involved in their discovery. Touma could easily empathize, as could most of the Academics of Knowhere when the projection was publicly revealed to their homeworld, and naturally everyone was furious at the disrespect for Rocket’s soul.

The celebration upon the arrival of the Star Children and their Halfworlder kin and the animals stolen from Earth who were now adopted into their community became so much sweeter.

2027

This year’s Annual Knowhere Academic Cultural Festival was in full swing as a certain polytriad were busying themselves by getting the Primary Colored Bonfire ready. The usual dead woods of the previous year’s harvest burned brightly as the flames burned their anticipated blue and yellow and red glowing warm lights. Once the blaze began to ignite, the peoples of Knowhere danced wildly as they celebrated their homeworld’s history, regardless of the origins of the inhabitants.

For everyone here, Knowhere was their tried-and-true home. Why not celebrate?

2028

The first ever Welters Championship in Academy City went surprisingly well and was greatly well received as the trophy was given to the District 12 Welters Team (nicknamed the Theologists) as they won against the District 22 Welters Team (called the Undergrounders). The different variants of Welters used between the two districts was the more important thing about Welters that was looked after. The creativity of how one was to cast the spells on the board was the measure of skill rather than raw power.

Welters was much like Chess in that way. The purpose of the game was one’s intellect being challenged rather than the body’s limitations. Just like Chess, Welters was a game of many varieties and there were always myriad new openings meant to be forged.

2029

Manila Bay, Philippines, Earth

The boat was a small sailboat named by her owner as the Dearest Sophia. A little koch boat of Arctic Russian origins to be specific and the harborman on board was traveling alone. Even if the vessel was a small one, the fact that the person on board was entirely alone in his sailing concerned the locals and the foreign seafolk stopping at the port. The confusion made itself obvious as the young man tied down his vessel and requested from the officials to have permission to dock. He knew these waves and proved it through having gained a sailing license from the Western Siberian Federation, a country that was once a piece of what was known as the Russian Federation, before that old country fell not too long ago.

The name on his ID read Clay Ivanovich von Novosibirsk, which was a rather odd name for anyone familiar with Russian naming conventions, as the usage of “von” in his surname was a Germanic convention. Then again, he could’ve just been multi-ethnic, so the detail of his surname was quietly ignored with a great deal of suspension. Even stranger still was the man’s signature as he appeared to have accidentally written his name in Japanese kanji and katakana before crossing that out and replacing it with Cryllic script in the Russian alphabet before scratching that out and writing in Latin.

“[*Operation Eden Phase Gamma-Zero*] <{Clay Ivanovich}> Clay Ivanovich von Novosibirsk” The young man’s signatures read as he signed the documents and quietly left in search of his family. He told the dockworkers and fellow travelers that he was looking for his birth family, but when pressed for further information as to why he was looking for them in the Philippines instead of anywhere else, he just walked away and kindly asked the dockworkers to watch over his boat.

Chapter Text

The lights went out without a reason, the screens switched off, and the screams were silent. None of the victims could report the event, because everyone in the bar was dead, their hearts fully removed along with their blood being just straight up gone. Same with their entire skeletons for some reason. Captain Tapia knew precisely who to call, given the nature of the slaughter, which was an unusual scene of carnage and death. It was the Witching Hour and Tapia was quite used to witnessing crime taking a turn for the weird. The new recruit was not so frequently exposed, but that was not surprising, considering that she had just freshly graduated.

“The Unit designated 51013 wonders why we are refusing to move the bodies. She wishes to know the reasoning why the corpses are remaining in this bar, this Unit designated 51013 continually ponders as she observes the scene around herself.”

“You’ll understand once Trese gets here.” Tapia replied to 51013’s confusion.

“Who is Trese? Asks this Unit designated 51013 in confusion as she notices a trio of unfamiliar figures entering the crime scene and points in their direction.”

A trio of silhouettes soon answered Unit 51013’s questions once they arrived.

“Sister Unit 51013, this is Miss Alexandra Trese and the gentlemen guarding her are her brothers, Crispin and Basilio Riviera. Trese, Rivieras, this is Sister Unit 51013. She’s new to Precinct 13.” Tapia introduced.

Trese and her boys wandered around the scene with the taste of familiarity towards the event. The dead were saying a million things, not just through their lack of blood and their removed hearts, but through the Blood Blossoms growing from them. Or rather, the lack of even the flowers growing and the petals that were left behind from whoever or whatever killed these people. The Blood Blossoms were many colors, as would be expected, given that the flowers were actually a fungus of some kind that were attracted to the blood of the dead which they would feed upon and be harvested by the scavengers as spices for their food and by the witches for ingredients for potions and components for their spells. The bright colors were based on the blood colors of their hosts, with the majority of the Blossoms from these corpses being the typical bright red of hemoglobin found in most Earth-based organisms, as reflected in the petals. It wasn’t too upsetting that someone would steal the fungi from the killed. That was expected.

The lack of their entire skeletons was weirder, as while there were plenty of uses for bones of any creatures, Taga-Dagat for spirit binding spells and Tikbalang for anting-anting and the like, but to harvest Human bones without a known reasoning behind them was slightly beyond Trese’s expertise. Why would someone even need an entire Human’s skeleton to begin with?

“What am I looking at right now?” Alexandra asked in a deep amount of confusion. She could understand the lack of hearts and drained out blood and the Blood Blossom petals left behind, but why the removed skeletons? How does one even do that without chopping up the meat first? The dead were clawed through, yes, but only for their hearts. Not their bones, save for their ribs, for obvious reasons.

Something about this kill was somewhere between a feeding and a ritual, but Trese couldn’t tell where the feeding ended and the ritual began. The only detail about it that was familiar was the hearts being clawed out. She could tell herself that much, since she was all too familiar with the signature of Datu Talagbusao, if the Kambal’s twisted fondness for cardiac muscle and constant craving for it was any indication of a possible repeat of his summoning. Perhaps a half-sibling of the Warchildren, if the Datu of War found himself a new lover to lust over. Maybe even a child of either of the Warchildren themselves, but they confirmed that to be impossible, since nature didn’t allow for hybrids of any sort to have the ability to reproduce. That included Demigods, apparently, which - although gross - did make a certain amount of sense. Somehow.

“Unit 51013, are there any of your Sisters within the Metro Manila area that knows anything about Blood Magicks? Any of them at all?” Alexandra asked Unit 51013 as the latter’s eyes glowed blue as the Sister Network linked up and communicated between each other. Alex, knowing from Tapia that the slain couldn’t see the perpetrator(s), was unable to get a clear image from the Testigo spell, so asking the Sister Network for some help was a wise choice for a third option, since the cameras in the bar had shut down entirely and the security system had the footage of the crime fully removed. Very cleanly, with no signs of having been hacked or having any form of malware installed.

“The Sister Network knows of the Units designated as 77777, 22200 and 31313 as the ones most well-versed in Blood Magicks and their rituals and Deities most associated with such Powers. Sisters 77777, 22200 and 31313 primarily reside at the rebuilt residence of the current White Lady of Balete Drive, following the death of Ms. De La Rosa. They would be the best Units to speak to regarding these victims.” The Sister Network, collectively speaking through Unit 51013, answered Trese. It was always creepy to those not perma-linked to the Sister Network to hear one (or some) of them speaking in their “Collective Voice” but Alex was just glad to know that she had somewhere to start.

“Thank you, Fifty-One Zero Thirteen. Taps, we’ll call you in case we’ve found something that can help you. You know what to do in case this investigation needs me and my crew more.” Alex simply replied as the two shook hands and both parties went their separate ways.

“So, why are you wondering about Blood Magicks in this case?” Basilio asked as Team Trese left the bar and Crispin drove towards Balete Drive. The Kambal knew instinctively what the scene was, knowing without question what was happening, and both silently agreed to not have the same fear become real for their possible half-sibling. 

They could feel the presence of one of their own emanating from that bar as soon as they walked in and the uncanny familiarity refused to leave them. They could even taste the leftover bloodlust that the killer(s) were thoroughly filled with throughout the massacre; the power they had over the victims and the pure euphoria they had experienced during the attack. They knew that distinct flavor of passionate killing. They could easily tell that their possible half-sibling could easily be overpowered by the high adrenaline and serotonin and cortisol pumping in their blood. They had it in themselves without question. They didn’t dare to doubt that their paternal half-siblings would be the same way, but the Kambal believed themselves to be misfortunate with their signature masks in the inevitable fight they knew was going to happen between them and their half-sibling, as they wouldn’t have the same filter that the masks provided that subconsciously commanded them to hold back and not go berserk with their own instincts to hunt and kill and make their prey bleed and the ever-insatiable constant bloodlust. 

That instinctual thirst for blood; it was impossible to keep it down.

They didn’t want to know if their half-sibling could be tamed like they were. As painful as it would be, the Kambal agreed that, if taming wasn’t possible, they'd put down their half-siblings themselves. A silent pact shared between them, hidden from Alexandra to keep her safe, and to make sure that their father would never have the ability to come back assuming their half-sibling somehow learned of that ritual.

“Because I knew the scene was familiar and I noticed how both of you panicked at the sight of those victims’ hearts being clawed out.” Alex answered as she quickly let them know that she had noticed the fears arising in their eyes. They both know they’ve been read like a book, but Crispin focuses on the road, allowing Basilio to speak for them both. Before either twin can say a word, Alexandra interrupts their thoughts, making herself clear.

“You’re not putting down your sibling, but we’re not going to allow them to get away with murder either. If it’s possible, I’ll see what I can find to help your sibling cool down their bloodlust and cover up their involvement in it the same way Papa did for you. If not, you two are responsible for them. Is that a deal?”

“Deal.” Crispin agreed as they reached the intersection at Balete Drive and 13th Street. Basilio was more hesitant about making this deal, since he could still clearly remember their mother’s sacrifice to protect them from their father, and the resulting chaos of the battle after Anton drove through the floor that day. To put down their half-sibling themselves and knowingly sacrifice their own flesh and blood to make sure that those they loved wouldn’t be killed, while the most logical conclusion, wasn’t the most enjoyable one to Basilio’s mind.

“Deal.” Basilio replied, already regretting this decision.

Why am I feeling so protective over this complete stranger? Is it because they're my potential half-sibling on Dad’s side? Or is this something stronger? Could I have sired a child and not know it until now? No. That’s impossible. I don’t have any ability to father a kid and even if I wasn’t sterile, I’m too careful to allow that to happen. I don’t have any offspring as far as I know. I’d honestly rather not know about them. For their safety rather than ours. The younger twin thought to himself as he exited the car.