metalogs | If madness overtakes us both [Open]

[Leo has been looking forward to this movie night - after all the crazy stuff that happened, doing something normal is highly appreciated. He knows it's good for him and Donnie, and maybe it's good for Accelerator, too; to just be a teenager with no pressure and no violence.

He's not aware of Accelerator's full feelings about the situation, of course, beyond grumpy (but he's always grumpy), but in general Accelerator seems to dislike good things happening to himself. If they keep it up, maybe he'll get used to it and start to like it? He can hope!

Either way, it's fun to show Lou Jitsu movies to someone.

He's on the couch, idly scrolling down Twitter while he waits for Accelerator to come back, when he hears what sounds like a stumble, and then a loud curse - hardly unusual for Accelerator, except Leo has no idea what he has to curse about right now. Did he stub his toe or something?

Then he hears coughing that sounds unsettlingly wet, and he's up on his feet, phone tossed onto the couch cushions.]

Accy, you oka- whoa!

[Yep, that's blood for sure.]

Donnie! He's hurt!

[How did he even get hurt like this!? Is someone here!? What the hell!? Leo hovers, hands in the air like he's not sure if he should touch Accelerator right now or not. After a second, he goes for putting a hand on his shoulder so he doesn't fall over.]

[Accelerator's place may as well be considered their secondary hang out by this point. The Lair's still in the works, but even then, it's not like they can casually invite people over to hang out at a sewer. Well, they could, but why do that when you had above-ground options?

Donnie looks up from where he'd been rotating some of the plant pots at the first sounds from the kitchen, frowning, but the moment Leo's calling for him, he's there in two seconds, freezing at the doorway upon the sight. That's more blood than he ever wants to see on any of their close acquaintances.

He shakes his head slowly, trying to fight down a wave of nausea before he forces himself to step into the kitchen with the two of them.]

What happened? Accelerator?

[He forces himself to think clinically, shoving emotions into the backseat as he starts looking around for towels. While Leo's supporting the esper, Donnie grabs a chair and hauls it over, gesturing for the esper to be helped to sit while he looks for other things he figures might be needed.]

Looks like he's wounded- Leo, can you get his shirt off? I don't know how bad it is but we still need to stop the bleeding.

[For several long moments his brain tunes everything out - the turtles, anything they're saying, little things like the kitchen's lighting and the floor tiles under his feet, even the fact that he's in Central and not Academy City.

He's home. He's home and immediately leaves the City to go to Avignon, which is in flames because of worldwide protests and riots by Roman Catholics. Then he's working with those idiots Musujime, Tsuchimikado, Unabara. He's killing the leader of Skill-Out, or those terrorists who kidnapped those kids and hijacked a particle accelerator. And he's trying to avoid Last Order, so she doesn't get involved.

Working with Oyafune, possibly the only person on the board of directors who wants to genuinely help the children of Academy City. The knowledge that (Leo was right) magic does exist. That everyone in Academy City is being spied on constantly via nanomachines. That he's the core of the board chairman's plans, whatever they are.

And there's Misaka Misuzu. Kill Point, he's dead because of him. Sugitani, alive but bleeding out slowly. Kakine Teitoku, the #2 Level 5, also dead. That Level 0.

DRAGON. Aiwass. Aiwass.

That being's words are still ringing in his ears.

“—That girl is a difficult case.”

"- she will certainly break down eventually whether it is very soon or in the distant future -"

“—Go to Russia.”

“—Remember the term ‘Index Librorum Prohibitorum’."

......... Needless to say, it's going to take him a minute to realize he isn't actually in Academy City (anymore), that he's instead in his shitty kitchen in Central City, leaning against Leo. Shaking his head, he tries to clear his thoughts and focus on the immediate present.]

I'm - fine.

[That's a lie if he's ever heard one. He reaches up to hit the switch on his choker, starts using his ability to redirect the flow of his blood so he doesn't bleed out on the kitchen floor. His shirt's still ruined, but at least he isn't about to die. Still, he sinks down onto the chair. Processing everything that just got shoved into his head while doing medical calculations is rough.]

There's a - first aid kit. It's in the bathroom.

[Donnie is straight into problem solving mode, which is helpful. Leo holds on to Accelerator until he sinks into the chair and turns on his choker (thankfully with no broken arms this time).

Leo doesn’t believe that “I’m fine” for a second, but the immediate problem is the bleeding. Leo is still concerned about how it happened (because that isn’t a wound you get from a simple kitchen accident), but it seems like medical attention first and questions later is what’s needed here.]

Yeah, I’ll get the shirt. [He glances Donnie’s way.] Go grab that first aid kit.

[Accelerator permitting, Leo will pull his shirt up and off so they can see what they’re dealing with. Having actions to perform makes a sort of calm wash over him, and so while he looks grim when he sees the slashes, he doesn’t panic.]

…Are you stopping yourself from bleeding?

[Hearing Accelerator speak eases some of the weight off of his shoulders, but Donnie's pretty sure coughing up blood and spontaneously bleeding everywhere is Not Fine.

He nods at Leo without hesitation, dashing off to go look for the first aid kit, relieved there's one available because even if it probably doesn't have nearly enough of what might be needed, judging from all that blood, it's still something.

While he's in there, Donnie grabs a couple of towels, soaking a hand towel under the faucet before coming back to the kitchen with everything.]

Got i--eugh...

[He grimaces at the wounds, sucking in a careful breath as he rolls up his sleeves and steps closer, minding the mess on the floor. Passing off the dry towel and the first aid kit to Leo, Donnie fixes the wet towel in his hand so he can try carefully cleaning around those slashes.]

Okay, so pardon me for being blunt, but what the hell happened?

[Accelerator doesn't particularly care and he isn't in the mood to snap at them regarding smarmy comments about his lack of muscle, so off goes his shirt. There are two diagonal slashes across his torso, they look fairly deep and bloody, though with his choker on his blood as resumed circulating as normal. It could be worse?

He puts his hand in one face for a moment, like he's got a headache.]

Yeah. I know how to control the fucking vectors involved in blood flow. I'm shutting my pain receptors off, too. Makes it easier to think.

[It isn't necessary to get into how he knows how to do all of that.

He reaches for part of the wet towel, casually rubbing at one of the wounds to get the excess blood out of the way.]

I was in Academy City for a couple of weeks. How long has it been?

[Those look nasty for sure, but Leo thinks they can get away with just bandages. Really, Accelerator should go see a doctor, but for now…

He takes the first aid kit and has it opened, rooting around, when Accelerator answers the question. Leo feels the shock roll over him, but his hands don’t stop what they’re doing.]

It‘s been like two seconds.

[It can happen that fast…

Leo doesn’t have time to stress over the confluences right now, though. He pulls out some disinfecting wipes and bandages, setting both on the kitchen counter.]

We came over for movie night, you got up to go to the kitchen and then started coughing up blood.

[If Accelerator seems able enough to clean himself off, Donnie lets him have the towel to do so. He frowns as the esper explains, or at least says what's happened on his end.]

How-?

[Donnie pulls his goggles down to look at Accelerator then for any signs of... Residual energy? He's not sure what, but it's not like Accelerator's lying when he's suddenly bleeding everywhere.]

[Two seconds...? Accelerator has to dig around in his memory, but luckily he recalls this night. Right, that second Lou Jitsu movie they were going to watch, and the whole stupid movie night thing. God, it's really bizarre thinking he was going to have a movie night with all the memories replaying through his brain.

At the forefront, though is this apparent temporal anomaly. That or he's started hallucinating days upon days worth of memories, but that honestly seems less likely. If his brain was functioning that poorly then he'd have developed RSPK Syndrome, and that doesn't seem to be the case.

Accelerator clicks his tongue, taking the towel and wiping away the blood on his chin. Aside from the injuries, his body looks normal.]

I don't fucking know. I didn't remember any of this.

[There's that, too. As he reviews his memories he's catching that small detail.]

Being back in Academy City was like I had never been here.

You couldn't remember...?

[Leo mulls over that info, as he starts opening up the antibacterial wipes. It looks like the blood has been cleaned off well enough, and Accelerator is stopping himself from bleeding for now, so cleaning and dressing is the next step.]

From what I've heard, when people go home with those machines from the Alliance they do remember. [Since some people go back deliberately for that reason. But then what does that mean...?]

Maybe it's because it wasn't voluntary this time. Maybe it was the Confluence... I don't know, catching you up?

[Except that opens up a lot of implications and Leo doesn't even know where to start thinking about this.

This would be where he would tell Accelerator that it may sting, except Accelerator said he turned off his pain receptors (insane!) so he'll just start disinfecting.]

[Between Leo and Accelerator handling clean-up, Donnie steps to the side to be out of Leo's way while he continues to study the esper through his goggles.]

So far as I've heard and read, Confluences are concentrations of whatever power, and there haven't been any reports of any since the last one, which is kind of strange if we go by previous occurrences...

Either way, there technically shouldn't be any runoff from the previous one to be causing anything.

...and then there's Chaos Gate's ominous parting words.

[He shakes his head.]

Unless you've suddenly, spontaneously developed some kind of power to...I don't know, time-sync with yourself from where you're supposed to be?

[Accelerator nods slowly at all of this.]

Those fuckers have never been able to tune their machines to my universe, so it couldn't have been voluntary.

[It was the very first thing he attempted when he got here, in fact.

He sets the towel aside, and since he's pretty useless when it comes to actual first aid he's going to sit there and let Leo take over, focusing on his calculations and the implications of all of this.]

I'd only be able to expand my ability in that direction if I input new values into my Personal Reality, and I've only ever done that back home. Not here. Time's a scalar, anyways. [So he'd have to do a lot of new calculations to somehow manage a vector-based time-sync.

He sighs.]

I guess I wouldn't put it past my boss to be powerful enough to pull something like this off. Or someone from back in Academy City.

[Leo focuses in on bandaging Accelerator up, nudging his arms whenever he needs to move them. As usual, most of what the other two are talking about starts going over his head pretty fast.

He doesn’t have much to add on the speculation of spontaneous time powers, but he does add this.]

How do we know any of the confluence junk is in Chaos Gate’s control, anyway? People can say whatever they want.

It’s weird that we haven’t had one this month, but… funky stuff happens to this dimension all the time.

[Donnie frowns to himself. It's hard gauging anything between Accelerator's PR field and whatever else might be going on, and he'd only really had a look at what was going on once or twice before.]

We have no concrete evidence, just a lot of coincidences so far as we know. But there are also facts. There was some higher power, or at least someone with a higher power, involved in everything regarding the whole Starfallen mess, and it was enough to bring Chaos Gate to the forefront. With a flashy codename like that you have to wonder what all she can do- I mean, what really is chaos magic?

Hey 'rator, what all you know about your boss anyway?

[He'll shift when Leo prompts him to, a little annoyed with himself that he needs first aid to begin with. You don't get to be the strongest by needing other people to patch you up.

That is, however, slightly less important than the topic at hand. Accelerator is silent for several moments.]

.....

[Where should he even start.]

She lives up to her name. [What a chaos gremlin.] I think whatever happened to the Confluence was caused by her. I think Mechanima was aware of what she could do, too. Part of the reason he made me be her assistant was to keep tabs on her.

[Is this something he should've mentioned earlier? Who knows. When he first started the job he didn't really care how questionable an order like that was, but now he's wondering if he should've been upfront with Chaos Gate....]

[Great. So she really could have something to do with it...]

If she has some control over it, maybe she did this to you on purpose? You're her assistant, so maybe she... wanted you to go back, or have your memories back, or something.

[But why? Wouldn't that imply Chaos Gate can see their own futures somehow?

This is making his head hurt. He focuses on the bandages.]

...There. I think you'll live.

[Pats Accelerator's shoulder.]

That doesn't make much sense. I guess the whole chaotic factor would play to her supposed nature but other than that, there doesn't seem to be much point in it.

[Reluctantly Donnie pushes up his goggles, but at least Leo's got Accelerator patched up.]

Do we need to get you to a hospital? You may have rewired your blood flow but does that do anything for internal damage? What happened anyway? Because that all looked pretty bad.

... She doesn't hate me, so I don't think she would've done this on purpose.

[Because he remembers going home and things immediately going to shit. Things are in fact, worse than ever, moreso than the chaos going on here. Now that he's getting a minute to dwell on it, he's noticing an aching deep in the pit of his stomach.

Last Order's condition hasn't been fixed. Whatever that nun did on September 30th was only temporary....]

It's fine. I can encourage cell regrowth. [He's mumbling that absently. It isn't a big deal, really.

Now that he's all bandaged up he slumps back in his chair.] You two won't believe me if I told you.

So? Maybe she knew that something you experienced would… I don’t know, help her somehow.

[He knows this is a stretch at this point, but still…

At Accelerator’s response, though, he laughs.]

Dude, we’re turtles with magic powers who were mutated by a goat man and then raised by a rat in the New York sewers. It would have to be pretty wild for us not to believe it.

[Donnie's staring at Accelerator like he's grown two heads before he shakes his own head with a sigh.]

Right, because that's something people just do. [He mutters, but if Accelerator's not concerned about internal damage then he's not going to get himself anxious over it either.

He gives the esper a flat look before gesturing with his head in Leo's direction with a smirk.]

What he said.

.....

[He doubts it, unless getting skewered Aiwass is going to help, somehow.

He sighs heavily. Okay, guys, prepare yourselves for some nonsense.]

That thing had said it somewhat corresponded to the term 'angel.' [He's spitting that out, like it's totally ridiculous.] It cut straight through my reflection using some kind of auto defense inputted into it by the board chairman of Academy City. My brain was interpreting that mechanism as wings that looked like they were made of platinum.

[Well, Leo believes it. He just wishes he understood it better. He's familiar enough with sci-fi tropes that he thinks he gets it, though.]

An angel that could cut through your reflection using an auto-defense... [Wait...] Does that mean the board chairman or whoever knows how to negate your powers?

[He doesn't really have much to say about it calling itself an "angel," because, again, anyone can just say a thing!]

An angel, right. But yeah, what you're suggesting is that this thing was created to specifically breach your defenses, and on top of that, was successful.

...was it anything like your 'wings'?

No. [To both Leo's question and Donnie's suggestion that Aiwass was made to combat him.] The board chairman developed this fucking production line of an artificial angel that led to the conditions for this thing, Aiwass, to form. Maybe 'summon' is a better term, because it sounded like it's been around for billions of years and that it'd keep on existing even after all of humanity's died off in the future. Anyways, once it could form it decided to show up because it wanted me to meet it.

[He drags a hand down his face. It's been a long few weeks.]

So no, none of its creation had anything to do with fighting me. I attacked it and its Aleister's fucking auto-defense kicked in. Its wings were like mine though, just... better.

[That's the best way he can explain it.]

Something about mine being from the Aeon of Osiris, and its being from the Aeon of Horus. I don't even know what that means.

Okay, so this guy was trying to make a fake angel, and he summoned a real angel instead. Allegedly.

[Pulling out a book word for that one. He has no idea if this thing is really an "angel" or not, but maybe that isn't the point. It's powerful and functionally immortal, if all of this is true.]

Osiris and Horus? What are... oh! [He smacks his hand into his palm.] I remember! From Lou Jitsu Meets the Mummy Ninjas!

[He seems proud of himself for remembering the names of Egyptian gods from a movie.]

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