Prologue

Resentful Prisoners of Their Own Devices.

Surfacing_Error.

"Tch. Does the city never fucking learn?" An annoyed albino boy with a can of coffee in his hand stared at a parked truck he had come across as he was trying to enjoy some time for himself away from all distractions. This boy was Academy City's fearsome and supposedly untouchable Number 1, Accelerator.

He had only just escaped being dragged around by the brat and Worst in what can only be described as one of their regular spats. Being around them for enough time let him predict when trying to sleep on Yomikawa's couch was not going to be enough to give him peace. They were both immature brats, after all, even if they were polar opposites in nearly every other aspect. As such, the art of slipping out completely unnoticed was something he had learned to master.

With the weather slowly encroaching onto the border between winter and autumn, the city fell into a tranquil lull as less people stayed outside and opted to spend more time indoors. Though, that never really stopped children from frolicking around outside. But, children passing by him sporadically were far less of an irritant compared to children bickering in the next room over.

Unfortunately, the lull of silently walking around the district with a can of coffee in hand needed to be ground to a halt.

"What a stench." Accelerator muttered as he stared at the vehicle that only seemed to feel out of place to him. In contrast to his words, he simply approached the truck from behind while finishing the last portion of his coffee.

With a flick of his wrist, he tossed the now empty can towards a nearby drum-shaped cleaning robot which subsequently stopped to let it land before taking it in.

"Now, then." With a hand on the latch on the container door, he muttered. "Let's see what this thing is hiding." His hand quickly flicked open the latch and pushed up the container door, causing it to roll up. With the help of his cane and a step built onto the truck below the container, Accelerator climbed up into it. As soon as he took a few steps into the truck, the door immediately unrolled itself and shut.

Before his eyes could acclimate to the darkness, numerous lights turned on within the container. Accelerator placed one hand on his choker's switch while letting his gaze dart around all over what was around him.

Numerous tower-like devices with flashing LEDs lined the walls as three screens, one on each wall, displayed various forms of raw data that were constantly scrolling down. Based on what he was seeing, the truck seemed to be a mobile sensor station, though what it was sensing was a complete unknown. The values of the raw data on the tables didn't seem to reflect any physical quantity that came to mind.

"My, my." From a speaker embedded in the monitor furthest from the door, a voice so electronically altered that Accelerator couldn't even glean the sex of the speaker reverberated. "Of all people to find this place, the Number 1 was not the one I expected. To what do I owe the pleasure of your visit?"

"If you must know, I couldn't stand your stench." Accelerator gave a frank reply. "What do you think shits like you are doing?"

"I see. Someone embroiled as you in the city's darkness can't stand its stench?" The voice began to chuckle. "How ironic."

"I swear, it's like Academy City can't keep to its word. I thought what I did at the end of the War was enough to stop it all, but shits like you just keep budding in over and over again."

"Oh, what you did had stopped it all. You had given those who had been chained to the city's filthy underbelly their chance to escape. You unlocked their chains and showed them the door to the light. You may not realize given your own deep-set ways, but you're a hero of sorts to many of us. You attained what so many of us couldn't and gave it all to us without a second thought." There was not a hint of condescension or malice directed towards Accelerator. Every single word the voice had spoken was honest. "For that, we all thank you."

Of course, despite the honesty, Accelerator didn't even have to ask why the voice was still mired in the world it had desired to escape or why this data collection facility even existed. Gratitude may have overwhelmed the voice's tone, but it was still coming from this vehicle that so obviously did not belong.

"But, I'm sure you experienced it with the Freshmen. I'm sure you experienced it during Agitate Halation. That world hidden in the city's shadows continues to exist. After all, humans aren't such simple things that they'll grasp the light the moment they get the chance to. There are some like Kuroyoru Umidori who only knew those familiar chains." It was not like she was the only one either. Otherwise cases like her or Mitsuari Ayu would have never existed. "There are some whose lives thrive in that shadow like a fungus like Yakumi Hisako and the Kiharas." But, the voice seemed to only talk about those entities as if they were all separate from it.

"And there are those who bear resentment so great that they have to turn back into the world they hate to crush it. I'm sure you've seen something to a similar effect before." The voice had finally erased its gratitude and began to seethe pure malice, as if it were a source of miasma.

"Tch." Accelerator clicked his tongue. Resentment left without proper cathartic closure was what lead to the formation and movement of the terrorist network known as GREMLIN as far as he knew. In the end, it was not unexpected for such a presence to exist in the city. "So you're just another piece of shit that wants to traipse about."

"That's cold, though I can't call that inaccurate as much as that pains me." The voice paused for a brief moment. "In the end, I just wish to make one request to you. Please stay out of our way."

"Heh. Who do you think you are to make that request to me?" With his free hand, he poked at his temple with his most slasher-like smile. In the end, the path of violence was truly difficult to divert himself from. "I'll crush you bastards. That's how this will go down in the end."

"I see. You wouldn't have gone as far as you did if you didn't have that attitude." Despite the malice in the voice, there was neither a hint of disappointment or hatred. If anything, one could detect what possibly seemed like admiration.

"But, I shall answer one question. Who are we, you ask?"

The screens on the walls and the LEDs on the various towers simultaneously shut down before lighting up again. But what remained on the screen was no longer an incomprehensible set of data charts constantly in update. They were all an identical countdown in large font dropping from ten.

"We are Academy City's Error."

The voice went silent as the obvious hang-up sound followed its silence.

Like clockwork, an explosion followed as the entire truck was engulfed in flames and everything inside was mercilessly torn apart.

Yet, despite that indiscriminate destruction, the boy in white had stood unscathed and unfazed with his cane retracted. "What a fucking pain."

A/N: The story of this project's birth is strange to say the least. It was originally meant to be a one-shot consisting of most of next chapter and a different chain of events following that, but it ended up in development hell for...a long time to say the least. But, after a bit of a brainstorm while waiting in anticipation for NT20, I ended up coming with a new idea for a full crazy long-term fic and ended up starting to write it instead.

I hope you enjoy Touma's and Accelerator's crazy ride that will start from here on out.