---

Academy City: peaceful on the surface, and seemingly business as normal anywhere you cared to look. In the warm, sunny days currently dominating the weather, it was almost unthinkable that anything bad could be happening just beneath the apparent serenity. Yet, as always, the various groups in the city weren't concerned with keeping perfectly to the rules.

In recent days, students--all level one or above--had been going missing for a few hours, and finding themselves waking up with no recollection of what had happened... and for a little while, with their powers acting... strangely. More powerful, normally, but not in a way that could be described as the same as if they'd advanced it normally. The free, apparently harmless power increase meant that people were in general not reporting it... and some were even going looking.

It was just another day for Academy City's most annoying level 0- sorry, most lovable genius who had yet to apply for her real level.

Beatrix exited the store, carefully balancing several large bags in her small arms, and clearly not struggling to walk with her view obstructed at all. Inside the bags were large, stuffed toys, perfect for cuddling into at night. Or having tea parties with. Or practising conversations. Not that Bea ever did any of those things! She was just an avid collector!

One of the bags balanced atop several others slipped from its perch, onto the floor below, causing the girl to grumble in frustration. Why the hell were these things so hard to carry?! That stupid shop should supply her with a mule or something! How the hell did they expect someone of her status to just carry all this by herself, anyway?!"

Setting the rest down on the floor, Beatrix tried to balanced her items into one big pile, but they stubbornly refused to comply this time. Carrying this alone was definitely impossible, after all. She'd need a servant. At least there was plenty around!

"Hey! Someone carry my stuff for me!" Beatrix barked an order at the general populace. Who, as usual, avoided eye contact and hurried away. Just what the hell was their problem, anyway?! Ignoring her like that...

...Maybe it was her tone? No, impossible, her voice was too perfect for it to be an issue. Everyone else was just mean.

"Hehehe..."

Tch. It was always the same, wasn't it? These kinds of people never seemed to learn their lesson. They saw someone who looked defenseless head through an allyway by themselves, and thought it was a good time to try and spring a trap and take their valuables or whatever... There was no way around it, these guys were pretty stupid. It was bad enough that they even though to do this to someone in the first place, to attack somebody like this... Folding her arms, Mikoto leaned against the wall as the group of men encircled her. They were all older, at least high-school aged, and looking like they thought a rich girl from Tokiwadai would be an easy target to get some money off of or something like that.

Well, it didn't matter. It didn't matter what they were thinking. Mikoto had somewhere to be, and these guys were some idiots who thought they'd make a quick buck off of a seemingly-defenseless schoolgirl.

"Now, hand over the-"

From outside the allyway, bystanders would perhaps hear a crackling sound, and then silence.

Around Mikoto, the men fell to the ground, smoking from a electric shock that had been administered. It was powerful, naturally, but they'd be fine. The shock was enough to knock them out, not to kill them.

It seemed like something like this happened every once in a while.

Murakawa Torako

"Ahaha~ If there was such an easy way, we'd all be level 5 right now."

She had said that with such confidence before, but now here she was dressed up in a non-descript jacket and cap, doing just what she said she wouldn't do. Torako, or simply Tora to those close to her, kept looking around just in case one of her friends should discover her.

"Aah... I thought I'd convinced myself then... There's just no way that sort of thing could even exist." It rang true to her ears, but still there was some part of her that doubted that, that wanted it to be true. What if it was all really true? What if she could find out what it was and actually gain some levels?

"Ei!" She slapped herself lightly on her cheeks. "I'm just going to look and see. If it looks suspicious, I'll call Anti Skill." Though, even if she said that, where would she start looking? Rumours were hardly reliable, and without much information, it was hard to even start looking into it without some sort of clue. If only those people actually remembered what happened to them.

She exited the alley, turning straight towards a rather troubled looking little girl, standing near a lot of bags.

"Yo, Chibiko." Torako said, a broad smile on her face. "Why the long face?"

---

Uiharu Kazari

"Hah... finally finished the paperwork."

There wasn't much to do today. It just seemed to be one of those days where nothing really happened.

"Hmm... its cold." She stood up from her desk, and refilled her mug with hot water, humming to herself in the empty office. No doubt the others were busy with their own business. They haven't called in for her assistance yet, so she assumed they were doing fine for now. There was that thing with the rumours though. Honestly, if there was anything Ruiko was good with, it would be those sort of rumours.

Of course, Uiharu did run a check on those rumours just in case, but as of now, there wasn't anything significant to find.

Perhaps she'd just finish up here in the office, call it a day and go home. Thinking she'd at least go about it again until she finishes her drink, she started up the search again.

Hearing someone speak, Beatrix turned to cast her snobbish, dual-coloured glare at the person who approached her.

"...That's not my name!" she fumed, crossing her arms, "how can you not know my amazing and illustrious name!"
The ignorance of the peasants could be quite astounding! It was bad enough when people ignored her greatness, but to not even know who she was?! Academy City was just filled with idiots, it seemed. This stranger was not qualified to help!

...Then again, she was the only one that offered. And since demands were strangely ineffective...

"Nevermind that..." sighed the little gothic-lolita, and pointed at her shopping, "I need help with those. Take them home, will you?"

There. Much better.

A brunette stepped down the street with a measured gait, not too long, but not too short either. Her dress was as perfect, barely a hair out of place as she walked along. Passerbyers were given little regard, ignored in favor of addresses and signs. After all, to Annette they weren't worth the time of day, not now when she was focused on a task.

"Hmmm, where is it," she said to herself in a quiet tone, glancing about as she turned a corner. That Judgment branch building had to be around here somewhere, and she knew she was close. She just had yet to reach it.

There was a good reason for her to be here after all. They had transferred her, effective tomorrow, and she wanted to see the place today, to get in all the details and such. Hopefully the people working here would not have an issue with that, though she didn't know what they could do if they did. Her only wish was that she could have worn a suit instead, but the ones she had were currently being cleaned. So, perhaps tomorrow instead.

At last Annette found the place she was looking for, as evidenced by the sign out front clearly marking it as a Judgment building. Not really odd, but one would find it surprising how unobservant people could be. Certainly she had witnessed such things in the training that her parents had given her.

There was no more time for dawdling though, in spite of the fact that that introspection had taken seconds at most, and she moved forward. Stepping inside, she headed for the main office, entering there as well. "Hello, this is Judgment Branch 177, correct," Annette asked as she closed the door behind herself. Time to make a first impression.

Murakawa Torako

"...That's not my name!" the girl fumed, "how can you not know my amazing and illustrious name!"

Ahaha~, such a cute child. Judging from her outfit and air, she was most probably separated from her parent or butler by some whim of her own and then bought things on impulse from this store. Tora doesn't know how young she was though. Very young if she had to guess. And very rich if the store is anything to judge by.

"Aha~ Sorry sorry. So, you wanted help with your bags, right?" Tora reached down and patted the girl's head on impulse. She wished she wasn't as tall as she was sometimes. Being tall wasn't cute at all. It makes owning cute plushy things silly.

Taking herself out of her reverie, she grabbed the bags with both hands, lifting them with barely any trouble. "Alright! Lead the way Chibiko!" Ignoring her own words and the fact she doesn't even know where the girl lived, she started sprinting down the streets with the bags.

---

Uiharu Kazari

"Aah... I can't find anything at all..."

Hearing the door open and close, she turned around in her chair. "Ah, Shirai, welcome ba..."

Kazari stopped short mid-sentence as soon as she noticed the girl.

"Hello, this is Judgment Branch 177, correct?"

"Eh?" Her mind went blank for a moment before she recovered. "Ah, yes! This is Branch 177. So..uhm.. How can I help you?"

Its quite rare for people to suddenly enter the office, but if that girl know the office, she should be here for something. Or Shirai sent her here for some reason. Or she could be Mikoto's friend?

Getting from the branch office to the scene of a reported crime quickly would have been no easy task for most people, even the many Espers in Academy City. For one of the city's few teleporters, getting to a normal crime scene before things got too out of hand would normally have been quite achievable--even if the sight of someone appearing and disappearing could confuse onlookers.

This was no ordinary crime-scene, however; it was one of those occasional scenarios where if she didn't get there in time, it would be more about cleaning up the aftermath than preventing any wrongdoing. Time was of the essence but even as Kuroko arrived, ready to declare exactly who she was, it was clear from the bodies lying around that she was already too late.

"Onee-sama!"

As she stepped forward, off of the wall and and into the center of the smoking, unconscious thugs. She paused for a moment when she heard a very familiar whooshing sound, and swiftly turned towards the source of the sound as the new arrival greeted her.

"Oh, Kuroko," she said, in a rather simple greeting to her roommate and friend. It was quite casual in spite of the circumstances, but this was hardly the first time such a thing had happened. Kuroko was a member of Judgement, after all, but usually when she showed up to this kind of scene it was after Mikoto had already handled the thugs. Things just seemed to always turn out that way when it came to this. Oh well. It's not as if her friend wasn't responsive, that was for sure, Mikoto knew from experience that Kuroko was a dedicated member of Judgement. But she could deal with these guys pretty quickly.

As it was, the Railgun was standing surrounded by the smoking, unconscious forms of a bunch of thugs. Needless to say, even a totally uninformed bystander could very likely figure out what had happened.

Annette was slightly relieved to find that she had found the right spot. It was an irrational worry to say the least, but she would very much enjoy not wasting her own time by going to the wrong spot on accident. Since she hadn't though, now she could get on with her business here, such as it was.

A bow then, to a height in accordance with local customs as she faced the flower wearing girl. Annette would admit, it had a style of it's own that she carried well. There wasn't anyone else visible at the moment, though she assumed that it was likely they were just off on business or somewhere elsewhere.

For her part, Annette wore a light smile once she had straightened back up, to make that critical first impression. "My name is Annette Delauney. I've been told I'm to transfer to this Branch due to your being understaffed, effective tomorrow." She shifted ever so slightly on her feet, to fine tune her posture and the way she carried herself. Still, it was a good start, at least in her opinion.

Beatrix seemed rather conflicted upon having her head patted, her expression struggling to stick with either 'outraged', 'surprised' or 'mildly pleased'. Eventually, it seemed to settle on a bashful, blushing expression that in no way indicated she was happy for any kind of attention, and loudly cleared her throat.

"Y-yes, my bags... well," the demanding rich girl began, her directions faltering as her new servant simply rushed off with her stuff. Well... it was nice that she was so eager to serve now, but that wasn't the direction to her home!
"W-wait up!" Beatrix yelled, running after the girl. Her dress wasn't all that heavy or frilly, but it was still obstrusive enough to hamper her speed. And maybe wearing mostly black on such a warm day wasn't the greatest idea she ever had...

School was over now and one Suniyama Sakie was all but shooed from her classroom by Komoe sensei because she was a good girl. She had wanted to stay in and bask in the cute and utter moe of Komoe-sensei buuuuuuut... well, it wouldn't have been fair to the others receiving supplementary lessons from the cute and diminutive teacher if there was someone sitting there because she wanted to. Granted, a certain blue haired male student was able to go along with it, but only because he flubbed his grades enough to have to be in the session in the first place.

Honestly, she was like a small animal! A rabbit! So nice and tiny and fluffy and cute... Sakie wove her way through the city, unable to really stand how much adorable could be contained in a middle aged woman. For someone who adored small cute things like Sakie did, it was like tempting a tiger with a nice haunch of raw meat. She had to restrain herself from patting her sensei on the head of all things. "Uwahh... I've resisted temptation today too..."

And then the slightly taller than average young Japanese citizen found herself being in... well, a part of the city she's never been before. Her moe induced haze had caused her to ramble around a weird route and she found herself in the shadow of two buildings... basically, the eponymous opening to dark alleyways where one would often get robbed in the movies. "...Fueeeeeeeeeee... How misfortunate..." She hung her head and mentally berated herself, her shoulders slumping forward.

Murakawa Torako

"AH!" Tora stopped suddenly, running in place. "I completely forgot. Where did you say your house was again?"

She turned around to see the girl huffing and puffing to keep up with her. Tora looked confused for a moment before realizing a girl that size with no real training probably wouldn't be able to overtake her in quite a while. At least, not without some sort of esper power. Guess longer legs do have their advantages after all. But she wasn't heartless so she'd have to be considerate towards that girl. What was her name again?

"You alright there, Chibiko? Maybe we should walk instead." She smiled as she said so.

---

Uiharu Kazari

"Eeh~ So you're transferring in tomorrow huh?" Kazari gave a wide smile. "I'm Uiharu Kazari. Don't hesitate to ask me for help with anything alright?"

Well, the girl doesn't seem to be lying, so it was probably alright. She haven't heard anything about a transfer however. Did Konori or Shirai forget to mention it, or did they not know about it as well. At least the new girl seems nice. She seemed a little... odd however, something Kazari can't quite put her finger on.

"Ah, would you like a drink? We can talk over some snacks if you like."

Annette nodded, reiterating nonverbally what she had told Uiharu. She seemed to be a nice girl, and Annette was predicting that she could get along well with her. She'd have to wait for the others who worked here to return to make any further estimates, but at this point it didn't seem like this would be horrible.

"I'll do that," she confirmed as she stepped further inside, looking about. This Branch seemed to be doing well for the lack of staff, all signs given of a busy workplace. Computers, files, that sort of thing. It was as tastefully decorated, though she could see a few areas for improvement.

Asked about refreshments, she could hardly refuse in her situation. "That would be lovely, thank you. I'll just have some water." She sat down as she watched Uiharu, calmly waiting for her drink while sitting with back straight and hands resting in her lap. Impressions impressions, it was all about the impressions one made.

Nadeshiko didn't really want to go out today, to be honest. It was too hot, for one thing, and not only that but the pleasant weather meant that there'd be lots of people outside. And, well... The fact was that she wasn't really good with people, especially large crowds. They just freaked her out far too much, unless they were composed primarily of cute girls... Which caused her to become rather uncomfortable in a whole different way.

Unfortunately, she needed new art supplies. She'd somehow ran low on paper much quicker than she'd expected (she had been a bit too inspired after seeing that one girl randomly flip her friend's skirt out of nowhere, and they were both so cute together she couldn't help it), amongst other things, and so she had to make a quick visit to the closest art supplies store. And then she wasted roughly fifteen minutes blushing and babbling incoherently because the till was being operated by that one pretty girl with the big boobs again and it took her that long to regain focus enough to remember that she'd came to this art supplies store to actually buy art supplies.

After that, though, she was so jittery that she really didn't want to be around people, so she decided to take a shortcut back to the dorms through a rather dark, cramped alleyway. Sure, she had heard about students being attacked in alleys before, but there was no way anyone would try and do that to her. She was well aware of how incredibly non-threatening she was, after all, and thus no-one would really have any reason to assault her, right? Besides, the rumour going around at the moment wasn't that students were being assaulted but that something was happening to them to increase their powers, and... Well, not that she really cared for that happening. Her power wasn't exactly something that could really do much even if it was boosted, she figured. It was somewhat useful for her art, especially for what helped boost her otherwise pitiful student allowance to more manageable levels, but other than that...

...She froze suddenly as she heard... Something behind her.

"H-h-hello? Um... I, um, uh... Is s-s-someone th-there...?" The tiny girl shuddered, clutching the bag full to near-bursting with art supplies tightly. "I, um, uh, um... I'm j-j-just passing through, um, uh... D-d-don't... Don't m-mind m-m-me eheheh..."

Now out of the dark alleyway--and with the appropriate authorities contacted to deal with the stunned, and thus easily apprehended, thugs that had been foolish enough to attack onee-sama--and walking alongside Misaka, Kuroko was repeating her oft-ignored remonstration that it was Judgement's job to deal with this sort of thing, and she should really just wait until someone else got there before simply frying everything.

---

If Nadeshiko turned around, she would find herself face-to-chest with a tall youth of highschool age, dressed casually and with obviously bleached hair. His expression whilst looking down at the timid girl was one of barely-concealed irritation at her reaction, but was swiftly pasted over with a much more pleasant expression and a rather sketchy invitation: "Hey, miss, how would you like to help me out with an experiment?"

Oh god, it's a delinquent!

No matter how pleasant his expression was, Nadeshiko couldn't help but practically jump out of her skin when he began talking. After all, there was no way this wasn't shady. She was in a dark alley, and a guy like this had snuck up on her, and then there was that really suspicious proposition... There was just no way that this was heading anywhere good at all!

"Um... S-s-sorry, um, um, I, um..." The tiny girl trembled, hugging the bag closer to her as she tried to make eye contact with the boy, failed miserably, and ended up just staring at his shoes. "I, um... I d-d-don't, um... I m-mean um I l-l-like... I like g-g-girls and um y-y-yeah um s-s-so um s-s-sorry um..."

"Not that kind of experiment... you know, I don't have time to try and talk you into it, you're coming with me," the apparent delinquent stated, taking a drink from the clear bottle that Nadeshiko would have noticed in her futile attempts to make eye contact, "I have a quota to meet."

From Nadeshiko, where there had been nothing but empty alleyway scant seconds before, came a menacing growl. It looked like a big dog, in the same way that a rottweiler looked like a poodle, and there was overall too much of it. Plus it seemed to be stalking towards her, looking quite ready to hurt the poor girl.

Misaka Mikoto

It was a lecture that Mikoto was really rather used to by this point. The whole time she'd been friends with Kuroko, in fact. Every time she knocked out some thugs who were harassing her, Kuroko gave the 'wait for Judgement' lecture. But wasn't it a lot more convenient to just take care of them right there? It wasn't like they were permanently injured or anything, the shock was just enough to knock them unconscious. And if they were going after someone else, well... she couldn't just stand there and let it happen. She wasn't the type to just let a bunch of thugs do whatever they wanted with someone, it wasn't right.

"They were ticking me off," the brown-haired girl replied, glancing slightly downward at her friend and roommate. "Besides, it's a lot more convenient to take them out without waiting. It's not like there were any serious injuries."

Saten Ruiko

Uiharu was sitting down... and facing the door. That made this a lot more difficult then it otherwise would have been. However, Saten Ruiko was not one to give up! She was feeling particularly energetic today, so there was no way she would back down from this challenge. Besides, there was another girl there, a foreigner who looked like a new recruit or transfer or... something. She would be Ruiko's distraction! Carefully the black-haired girl crept along, eyes on her prize. Uiharu was definitely distracted, there was no way she'd notice before it was too late!

Ruiko carefully maneuvered along the wall... it was not often that a challenge such as this would present itself, especially with this kind of prize! It would only be a few more moments before she was right in position to make her next move... for the briefest of moments before she did anything. Ruiko knew that the new girl saw her when she got in front of Uiharu.

But it was time!

Swiftly, the girl raised her friend's skirt, quickly peering inside.

"Oh, clovers... Is it my lucky day?!"

With the taller girl finally coming to a stop, Beatrix gratefully regained her breathe, hands gripping her knees as she doubled over. Physical activity was not her best stat, admittedly.

After a few moments, Beatrix straightened her posture and puffed out her chest, smirking condescendingly, "Hmph! Of course I'm fine! A light trot is nothing to me! ...Still, there's no need to rush, so don't go speeding all over the place, will you? It's quite annoying."
Relaying the directions of her dorm to the girl, Beatrix walked onwards once more. Roughly a ten minute walk away, which was just about within her limit. Quite handy when she needed supplies or new frien- toys.

Oh, right, peasants should be rewarded when they actually succeed, right? the young girl suddenly realised. Well, money was hardly an issue for someone of Beatrix' status, but how much did one pay for an escort such as this? It wasn't that difficult, right? But this girl pretty much volunteered...
The arrogant girl continued to ponder this dilemna with a small frown as she walked.