Re: Zero Do what thou wilt

How truly vexing.

Dull red eyes looked down on the various gasping thugs sprawled about on the hard ground. All with broken limbs, beside them lay ruined metal pipes, bats, and other makeshift weapons.

Though it was clear to see they were in pain, were anyone else to see the scene before them they would call the thugs lucky.

They had attacked the city's #1, after all, and they merely ended up with a few broken bones. They were still alive, but the monster they attacked was contemplating whether he should keep it that way. This had not been the first time he had been attacked; no, this occurred many times before, thugs ganged up on him wanting to beat him for something as simple as a title. Though it was especially worse now.

After all, the first-ranked esper of Academy City was beaten by a mere level 0; so surely everyone else had a chance to beat him and take his place, right?

Accelerator clicked his tongue, thinking about how the level 0 who beat him was pissing him off, and he didn't feel like killing anything right now, so he merely walked past the groaning thugs as his eyes began wandering. It was dark out, no students would be walking around as it was past curfew. The only ones out this late were delinquents and Anti-skill.

Nevertheless, curfew wasn't something he had to worry about, and besides, he needed to see if any Convenient Store was still open.

With all these thugs attacking him, he could do with some coffee.

But as he walked through the silent streets, he stopped suddenly as his hand rose up to his chest. There was a sudden weird throbbing sensation, not like a fast-beating heart but rather as if something was pounding against it. Though not painful, it was unsettling. Accelerator frowned, was this an attempt on his life by some lackluster ability? Or was something else at play?

But shrugging it off as just him being stressed out, he continued walking. And it wasn't long until he reached what he was looking for.

Dimly lit up between two buildings was a Convenient store, this particular one he tended to visit a lot as it had the brand of coffee he tended to drink a lot.

So stepping through the automatic sliding doors, he immediately advanced to the back of the store where he would find what he was looking for, only to find there was no coffee left.

Someone had bought it all, whoever needed that much coffee?

How unlucky.

He resisted the urge to click his tongue, but there was no use being sour over it, so the esper merely walked back to the exit, passing the frightened-looking cashier, he stepped onto the dull streets once again. He was surprised to find no thugs awaiting him.

But more importantly, the feeling from earlier wouldn't subside.

So once again he walked around until he came upon a small park with a single wooden bench. Taking a seat on it, the esper let out a sigh as he allowed a moment of respite.

Though the thugs that kept attacking him weren't really difficult to deal with, it was especially annoying to have been attacked so much every day.

But something bugged him...

"I wonder...has something changed?" A question left his mouth that might have seemed confusing to most, but to him, it meant something.

He couldn't help but feel that something had changed within him. The thugs kept attacking him now despite their useless efforts, and he showed them mercy more often than not. He merely left them with a few broken bones and shattered egos, though he never felt like killing them.

He should by all accounts have no problem with the notion of 'killing'. After all, he did participate in the Level 6 shift experiment.

"The sister..." He muttered as he recalled the experiment. He'd killed about 10,031 of them, that was a kill count not even the most infamous serial killers throughout history could reach.

Yet one teenage boy had. But he felt sick thinking about it, but why?

They were mere dolls, products that could be created by pressing a button. They had no emotion, they had no souls yet why did he feel like this?

Was he regretting his action?

"Hah!" The esper almost laughed at himself.

"They were nothing but dolls, no matter what anyone says. They're just puppets that were made for me to kill." Though those were his thoughts, he felt as though he did not agree with them.

Even if he regretted what he did to them, what was he supposed to do? Beg for forgiveness? Go on some crusade to protect them forever? It just wasn't like him.

"The Sisters were living with everything they had. Why do people like that need to act as your prey!?" The words of the level 0 who beat him came to the forefront of his mind.

Maybe he was right, maybe the sisters were just as human as anyone else. Maybe they had dreams of their own, ambitions they wanted to come into fruition, maybe...

But in the end...

"It doesn't matter." Standing up from the bench, Accelerator wore an irritated face, it really wasn't like him to think like this, so maybe losing had really changed him.

Whether it was for the best remained to be seen.

"Stop standing there like an idiot!" A voice shouted as a burly man nearly collided with him.

"Ah?" Confusion was made evident on Accelerator's face as he looked at the change in scenery.

It was suddenly light out, and the imposing skyscrapers of Academy City were suddenly gone, and the silent streets now bustling with people. Said people wearing clothes that looked like something you'd only find in medieval times, of course, that was not the strangest trait of these 'people'. Animal people, that was the only way to describe them. People that looked like overgrown animals that stood on two legs while others seemed to only have specific traits, not to mention the huge ass lizards pulling carriages on makeshift roads sandwiched by what looked like various market stalls.

Accelerator looked at the scenery before him dumbfounded, you would think that what he was seeing was the result of an esper messing with his brain, but he had countermeasures against said power like telepathy and cerebrokinesis. Even if an esper managed to affect him, the illusion shouldn't have been this potent. A level 5's brain was insanely advanced, especially his which surpassed even multiple supercomputers meaning it would be hard to affect his brain with anything like mind control. The only person capable of that would most likely be the #5 level 5 esper Mental Out, though Accelerator had little knowledge of what she was really capable of as he held little interest for those weaker than him.

("No, pretty sure number 5's ability revolves around controlling and reading the human mind, not making it see illusions. Besides pretty sure they couldn't even keep a level 5 brain confined for too long.")

But if someone wasn't messing with his mind, then what else could it be? Teleportation was another answer but his reflection was active and even if it was teleportation, where the hell did he end up? Seeing as it was medieval-like, Europe seemed plausible but that did not explain why he was seeing all these animal-like people. Something like that would be common knowledge given how unnatural it is.

He racked his brain for any answer yet none came. He clicked his tongue as his eyes scanned around wildly. He was receiving odd stares, whether it was for his appearance or clothes he did not know.

So setting aside the question of how he found himself here, Accelerator's legs started moving. He began walking, he did not know where he just knew he needed to find someplace quiet. Someplace away from lingering eyes and bustling streets. Though as he moved his eyes didn't stop scanning everything around him, he took in every detail.

"Hold on, that language..." Plastered against a small establishment was a wooden plank with strange written characters on it. Though Accelerator was surprisingly fluent in multiple languages, he could not make out what the board said. He had not seen such characters before, though it be more appropriate to call them glyphs. He kept the information at the back of his mind before his eyes landed on what looked like an entrance to an alley.

He ducked into the alley quickly.

Leaning against the wall, he shoved his hand into his pocket and sluggishly pulled out his cellphone.

"No signal." He muttered annoyed. Either this place was extremely isolated or he was just far away in the boonies.

But it still made no sense, something about his situation screamed illogical but he didn't have any information to draw a worthwhile conclusion. What he could conclude was that at the very least it was all real, his ability was still functional as were his body functions. He could at least be certain of that.

"What the hell am I missing?" Frustrating, he felt like throwing something, he had no clue what was happening.

Was this just some other experiment again? Put the first-ranked in an unfamiliar place and see how he reacts? Was that all this was?

"Look, the poor bloke's talking to himself." A voice reached his ears as multiple footsteps did as well.

His eyes rolled to the entrance of the alleyway to see three men blocking it.

One was tall and muscular, he probably would have intimidated most. The second was tall and lanky, and looked like a crack head, and the third could be mistaken for a toddler.

"Looky here. Kid thinks he's hot shit prancing around like he owns the place." The shortest of the three spoke first, a grin on his face as his comrades imitated him.

"Clearly the little princess doesn't know where he is." The lanky snarked.

"Empty your pockets, kid, and maybe we won't beat you to a pulp." The tallest of the three ordered, trying to sound intimidating.

Accelerator stared at the grinning thugs, they didn't seem to know who he was. But it wasn't as if he needed any more confirmation that he wasn't in Academy City anymore, but then again this just made the situation irritating. Now he could try and tell them he had nothing worth stealing but maybe they just wanted to beat someone up, so that might not work.

Accelerator sighed as he messaged his temple.

"Move aside!" A loud voice snapped him out of his annoyance, a blonde-haired kid sped through the alleyway. She came to a temporary stop as she looked at the esper and the three thugs.

"This a stick-up or a meet-up? Eh, none of my business." Everyone merely kept quiet as the girl started to speed up again. "Well, whatever, live strong!" She exclaimed before she ran past them and jumped over a wall and atop a roof, before she disappeared from their view.

("That level of agility can't be normal.") He kept that at the back of his mind as the thugs started speaking up again.

"Oi! Don't think that changed anything, we're still robbing you ro-" The big one spoke but was immediately silenced as a brick slammed mercilessly into his face, breaking his nose and leaving him with a caved-in face. His body harshly and motionlessly fell to the ground.

The two thugs looked at their downed comrade, dumbfounded.

"Sorry, you guys were starting to bore me with your sad attempts at intimidation." Accelerator said as he cleaned out his ear with a pinky finger.

"B-Bastard, what did you do?!" The small one shouted as he slightly backed away.

"Ah? Can't you see? I threw a brick at his face." Accelerator spoke as if what occurred was natural.

"What are you getting scared for!? He's still just one runt!" Pulling out a large knife, the lanky one charged at him, shoving the blade forward.

Accelerator merely closed his eyes as he waited, and not a moment later the sounds of shattering bones filled the alley as well as the pained screams of the owner of said bones.

As the lanky man harshly fell to the ground, gripping his grotesquely twisted arm, the shattered remnants of his knife fell to the ground with a clang.

"W-What?" Confused, baffled, and afraid, the small thug just looked on not knowing what to do.

"What's the matter? You guys were trying to rob me, right? Come on, finish the job." Accelerator spoke as he approached the quivering thug.

His fear was understandable, his larger friends were taken out with no effort and now here he was looking at the most terrifying smile he had ever seen.

Accelerator had decided to take the initiative. Usually when facing such lowly opponents he'd just let his 'reflection' do the job, but he was pissed. This whole situation frustrated him, it had too many unknown variables and not knowing anything got to him, maybe he finally snapped and wanted to hurt something again. Whatever the case, he could not carry through on any violence as another voice entered the fray.

"Leave that child alone and return what you stole, you fiend!" A girl's voice spoke from the entrance of the alleyway, long silver hair and mesmerizing violet eyes. Her face was youthful and her skin was pale, and she was dressed in what looked like a white robe adorned with different things like flowers and colors such as purple.

Though Accelerator ignored all that and focused on the huge chunk of ice that seemed to hover next to her as both her hands extended and pointed at him, her eyes trained on him.

"Cryokinesis? So there are other espers here." Accelerator muttered lowly, and the thug seemed to take this as an opportunity as he was no longer focused on him.

"Help! This guy's crazy!" The small thug pleaded though it was too late as Accelerator's sole found it embedded into the thug's face, though he used little force the thug's body seemed to launch towards the entrances.

At the same time, Accelerator took note of the chunk of ice that was coming his way at a speed that almost rivaled a bullet.

("She's an esper, shouldn't she know who I am? Crap like this won't wor-")

The ice chunk collided with his head and immediately shattered into pieces, some of the diminished ice sticking on his clothes.

"Ah?" Blocked but not reflected.

("Did I miscalculate? No, I wouldn't make such a simple mistake especially with such a power. But how is her power functioning then? Is there that much water vapor in the air for her to freeze? Or is she combining oxygen and hydrogen to create water she can freeze, there's not nearly enough hydrogen atoms in the air, but does that kind of logic apply here?") Accelerator clutched his buzzing head as he stared at the silver-haired girl.

She looked slightly surprised, no doubt due to him shrugging off her attack. But she kept her hands trained on him.

"Talk about jumping to conclusions. These thugs were trying to rob me, I just defended myself."

"How do I know you're not lying." She replied quickly, and the esper considered what he could say.

But he did find something, she didn't seem to know him despite being an esper. She launched that attack without hesitation too, you'd think she was unaware of just what kind of situation she was in.

("Then there's her ability. Broken down into its simplest form and it's just a chunk of pure ice thrown at me, but something foreign was mixed in. Something that caused that reaction from my 'reflection'.")

"You not answering only ascertains that you are guilty, now return what you have stolen from me and I will not be forced to use force again." Still ready to attack, the esper only looked at the girl confused.

"What I stole? Didn't steal anything, brat." The espers curt reply only evoked a slight eye twitch from the girl. "If anyone stole anything, it's probably that brat from earlier." He muttered though she appeared to still hear him.

"There was someone else here? Who was it? Which direction did she go?" Rapidly firing her questions, she broke out of her stance and her arms went back to her sides.

"Ah? First you attack me, then you start making demands? Man, you sure are something." His sarcastic remark seemed to remind her of the current situation, and she looked down, whether from embarrassment or shame, he didn't know nor care.

"W-well you attacked that boy so I assumed..."

"Hey, hey, can't you see you're scaring her." A new voice seemed to echo in the alley, Accelerator looked around the alleyway to find the source, but his eyes soon turned back to the girl.

"What the..." There was a cat floating near her shoulder, it was small and grey and had a small purple satchel with it to match the girl's.

It seemed to have appeared out of nowhere.

"Come on Lia, you could've called for me sooner, I could've taken care of things right about now." It spoke casually as it hovered near her, and it somehow mustered a smile.

("A talking cat? Thought she only had cryokinesis? Or does she have a whole other ability altogether, if so, then what the hell is it. As far as I know, esper abilities can't create life on the fly, that would require someone to construct each individual atom and cell, that kind of calculation ability could only be achieved by another level 5. But I've never heard of her before.")

"Hmm, don't think I've ever seen someone so confused." The cat spoke again, and Accelerator merely raised an eyebrow at it.

He was sure he didn't let his confusion show, but ignoring that, he turned his attention to the strange duo.

("Everything felt so off, this strange foreign place, stranger people, and now someone with a strange ability.")

A sudden thought crossed the espers mind, an absurd thought but logical all the same. But given his situation, it seemed like a strangely plausible answer.

"I wonder..."

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A/n: This is not mine originally but the original author gave permission to use this. Granted chapters coming out will take extremely long as I'm busy with an actual novel. That said if someone could point out an Re:Zero fic that I can take inspiration from that be great.