A few hours before the festivities of the Daihase Sports Festival began, a large crowd was gathered at one of the newest department stores of Academy City thanks to a super sale that would put the Black Friday to shame. To help promote it, a number of events have been held. From a humble petting zoo to an overhyped show of one of Japan's most renowed idol bands.

Though, the literal jewel of the crown was the first public presentation of the "Sternherz", the world's first stable mettalic hydrogen crystal.

"Made possible by the combined efforts of Academy City's best researchers and a few high level Espers that could manipulate forces related to pressure and gravity. While this demonstrative sample was shaped in the form of a simple decorative gem, mass production of such crystals might lead the world to a new era of near endless, cheap and clean energy, harnessed directly from where it should be, the Sun's own heart..." the ceremony hostess said just as all the doors and windows of the department store were being closed, so that the whole building would become dark.

Once it was made, an assistant uncovered the bullet-proof glass casing that held the gem in a gravityless environment and as soon as she did that the whole plaza was went silent, take aback the gem's brilliance, though, it was at that time that something unexected happened...

"BANG!"

A gunshot broke the static silence, and soon enough the assistant that wa holding the case fell to the ground amidst a pool of blood. Right at that time several masked men wearing paramilitary looking equipment and all sort of weapons, from simple pistols, to shotguns and LMGs appeared as if from nothing as their leader, a man wearing a black balaklava with a white skull painted over his face, announced "Attention, ladies and gentlemen, from this time onward this gem as well as all of you are under our jurisdiction. Any attempts of escaping the building or trying to fight us will be met with lethal force. And jsut so that the wannabe esper heroes know..." the man made a puse before pressing a button, to normal humans nothing happened, except that a very annoying sound began to play on the store's PA system, but the present Espers started to fall to the ground or hold their heads grunting in pain.

"You see, this thing is called Capacity Down, and it's strong enough to disable even a level 5, so, if any one of you tries anything funny..." he cocked his .50 pistol and shot the assistant in the face "you're gonna join her."

Shiba was relaxed as he was walking through the mall that day. Shiba knew that today because of the festival their would be huge sales going on and he had his eye set on a nice board in the surf shop and if the price dropped enough Shiba would be getting a brand new surf board to play with. Shiba listened and heard a gunshot and like anyone else he looked around to see what made that noise and it came from a department store with some masked guys obviously taking the mall over, Shiba didn't really care they would go down eventually by some other esper who wanted to take the glory but right now Shiba just wanted his board.

He was about to just let it go until he started to hear that music and dropped to his knees trying to cover his ears damn that was annoying. Shiba stood up still trying to cover his ears as he yelled from another store nearby hey asshole! if your trying to demo your soundtrack your supposed to do it at karaoke! leave if your that desperate for someone to listen to you then go outside and beg for money like anyone else! Shiba called out obviously not giving much of a care to the situation and he was obviously insulting the man, even if only by a little shiba was able to lessen the tension of the situation then he did a good job...

One moment, one particularly roughshod looking young man was cruisin' the streets, mindin' his own business, shootin' looks to kill at anyone lookin' at him funny for holdin' a bouquet of flowers. An interesting, some might say unusual sight, yeah, especially for an obvious badass like himself, but they didn't know jack and shouldn't be judgin' like a buncha morons anyway.

The next, there were a pair of gunshots, and he crumpled through floor like someone had bashed his head in with a growbar, which honest-to-god, it felt like. clutching his head, fingers stabbing through the sides of his ship's-prow pompadour, he uttered the first words of the game through grit teeth.

"...the...hell?"

Looking up, he saw a group of armed men in balaclavas and bulletproof vests issuing orders to the crowd.

Terrorists? In the Big AC? You gotta be kiddin'...

He sneezed out his previous noseful of pollen, and slowly looked down.

Broken. Every last one of them, broken. Crushed. Destroyed. Unusable.

Dead.

His brows knotted together in rage. His teeth clenched hard enough to bite straight through bone.

And despite his head feeling like it contained the sun itself, steam vented from his pores, gathering in an angry cloud around the teenager.

"You bastards..." he growled, albeit from a city block away. "Those were for my sister!"

Whatever the mysterious group meant to accomplish, it had gotten one unexpected variable. In their arrogance and ignorance, they personally pissed off the most bad-ass dude in all of Academy City!

Wu Fuwei (吳 福威) [Delivering to Customers in Need]

Delivery of Woodles to Sakamoto Haruka.

At X Department Store on X Street.

1 cup of Beef Stewed Noodles.

Delivery @ X:XX

Price = ‎¥200

A fairly typical order, Tommy Woo mused as he glanced over the order receipt. This Mr. Sakamoto was no doubt just a busy store clerk wanting a cheap, yet hearty, meal. A perfect job for Woodles family noodles, after all the working class man deserved nothing but the very best. Unfortunately, Tommy Woo found his important service being impeded by pesky closed doors and windows. Interfering with the hunger of the working class man was bound to have disastrous results.

There was also that annoying high pitched sound, but Tommy Woo was more than ready to brave through that hiccup.

Now there was something Tommy Woo quite enjoyed about the buildings in Academy City, they pretty much all had a roof entrance. A back up plan for the pioneering young man. Taking the care to lock up and park his bike, Tommy Woo quickly got to work climbing up the fire escape (Safety First truly was a blessed concept). It was therefore a little unfortunate that upon reaching the top, the ladder of the fire escape dislodged and hit the alley down below.

That ladder was not safe. The boy mused.

Now on the roof, the delivery boy made haste to the door, after all taking too long would create cold noodles. And that would not do, in the words of his father, "Boy, cold noodles leads to a cold heart. We must warm the hearts of our customers so that they might be merry. Otherwise, and pay attention to this boy,"

"You will not get tip."

Thus an unlocked door at the roof of the building was a boon from above, ensuring that Tommy Woo could spread the joy of noodles to all customers in need. Ever cautious of the need for a proper eating environment, Tommy Woo was dismayed by the lack of lights in the facility. So he did the proper thing and hit the light switch.

"Hello," he called out over the high pitched noise, "Delivery for Sakamoto Haruka-San from Woodles - Woo Family Noodles."

Capacity Down? That was something he hadn't expected to hear about outside of the Skill-Out grapevine. Bit exciting, honestly, to be present for the infamous Anti-Esper device's grand return, but it'd probably have been a whole lot better had he, Onodera Nagamasa, not been, you know, an Esper and attempting (and totally failing) to ignore the lancing pain in his mind. Man, it was like goddamned (do not take the name of God in vain yes mother I know I know) lightning to the head, and it felt worse than that time he suffered a migraine a few years ago. So here he was, stuck outside a department store with some gun-brandishing punks, a skull that was gonna split, and no drugs to relieve it.

This was a real shitty day.

Those Big Spider guys had been pretty good or something, even managing to stall the ol'Railgun with that thing these punks were waving around. So going straight-up Hidden Boundary on their asses was out of the question. Shit, he just wanted to hit something. His head was a real bitch and the cold brick he was sitting against wasn't really comfortable for a guy whose brains were probs leaking. Nagamasa didn't really know if they were or not, but whatever could fuck around with whatever the PAP did to him and everybody else currently being hit with pain up the wazoo wasn't something he wanted to stay around for.

He probably should've stolen a gun or some crap like that. Academy City wasn't Japan, after all. Could've somehow circumvented those strictass firearm laws, if this fucker with the .50 was any sign. And ugh that poor girl. All that blood and brains on the ground? Nasty.

He ain't being a hero just to turn his beautiful face into smush.

And he was only starting to like the day, yaknow?

It was days like this where being in Judgement sucked, Gaige gotten the call while he was off at one of the events for his school. He left the field and changed into his uniform pinning his Judgement band on he ran over, an operator feeding him info as he went. A Capacity Down system? He had never heard of that, what he did know was that couldn't get close, he needed a plan. Of course the one he came up with was terrible, he grabbed a magazine on guns from a news stand as he ran, it was the same one he had in his dorm room but he didn't have time to go and get it. He stopped a good six blocks from the site, even hear he felt like something was wrong as he looked through the magazine, finally he found the article he needed, one on highly advanced new sniper rifle the United States had developed. He'd seen it last night but hadn't bothered to memorize the details of it.

He sat the magazine down beside a three meter tall cherry tree staring at the article he place both hands carefully on the tree, he hoped this thing had enough mass. He shut his eyes imagined the tree becoming the rifle, the inner workings taking shape the bolt, the pin, the scope. Carefully he opened his eyes before him sat a prefect condition three-oh-eight caliber sniper rifle, he then changed the block of wood he kept in his bag into a nineteen-eleven pistol. Grabbing a two bricks and four solids concrete blocks from a back alley he made clips for them. Three sniper rifle clips and four pistol clips, he prayed he had enough ammo.

Then he entered a building across the street from where the presentation had been taking place, he lined up on the windows along the walls. Looking down the scope he clicked his Judgement earpiece on and began to speak. "Judgement branch 177 this is Gaige, the thieves have hostages and are highly armed. Mostly students it looks like they already killed one. I've got a line of sight on them, I can start shooting if things get bad." He really hoped he didn't have to kill them, then again it wouldn't be so bad scum like them didn't deserve to live.

“Oh! We have to see this!” Bunko, a lanky, nerdy girl with long, straight black hair, said, grabbing the hands of her friends, Hoshi and Kasumi, and dragging them into the store where some kind of presentation was beginning before they could react. Knowing that it was futile to resist, Hoshi allowed herself to be dragged along by the larger girl, smiling as Kasumi protested grumpily. As the two girls were led to a spot in the back of the crowd, Bunko explained, in that bookish way of hers, that it was the first time that metallic hydrogen had been created and stabilized, citing numerous applications that it might have in the world around them.

The trio got a few glances thrown their way as they attempted to slip into a good vantage point in the back of the crowd, more than likely because they seemed a bit young to be interested in such a display. Once they were in their spot, Hoshi tugged on Kasumi’s sleeve and said, “Hey, Kas, do you mind giving me a lift so I can see?” while giving her the puppy eyes. Even though Kasumi sighed dramatically and rolled her eyes, she still crouched down so Hoshi could climb onto her shoulders, a slight smile on her face.

Considering the fact that Kasumi was a fairly athletic girl, lifting the fifty or so pounds that was Hoshi really required no conscious effort on her part. She just enjoyed acting grumpy, claiming that someone had to balance out Hoshi’s endless exuberance. As such, Hoshi really paid her friend’s mannerisms much mind, climbing onto the larger girl’s back, taking care not to tug on Kasumi’s curly, bright red hair in the process. The few people behind them were a bit displeased with their view suddenly being blocked by a little blonde girl atop the shoulders of another, larger girl, but there was still room to move, so it wasn’t an issue for longer than it took them to take a step to one side or the other.

Hoshi, however, was too busy staring at the gemstone to notice the annoyance of those around her. “It’s so pretty,” she said, awe tinging her voice. Bunko nodded along, though she didn’t say anything because the woman up front had started to speak, essentially repeating what Bunko had told Hoshi moments before. As she spoke, she lowered the coverings of the windows and doors to darken the room, leaving only the light shimmering onto the gem from above to break the darkness.

The only problem with this was that the light above the stone wasn’t the only source of light in the room, which became quite clear rather quickly as the light spilling from Hoshi’s body, a cascade of color that shimmered with her every breath and illuminated her immediate surroundings. Before Hoshi could ask Kasumi to let her down, so as not to annoy the others in the store further, a gunshot rang out and several people in military fatigues congregated around the stone.

Their leader, a man wearing a skull balaclava, explained that they were taking the gemstone for themselves, and that no one should try anything funny. To punctuate his point, he pressed a button on a strange device, emitting a high-pitched sound that made Hoshi feel as though her head were being crushed. Unfortunately, Kasumi was also an Esper, meaning that she fell to her knees almost immediately after the device was turned on, sending Hoshi sprawling across the floor.

Pain lancing through her skull as the sound continued, Hoshi couldn’t do much more than lay on the floor where she had landed, hands clamped over her ears to block out as much of the sound as possible while ignoring the throbbing pain that had taken residence in her right hand and wrist when she landed on them. Hopefully, they wouldn’t see the faint glow around her and suspect her of trying anything to interrupt their getaway.