Well...I've come to realize just how canon breaking this story is – err, sorta, at least(It'll be getting even worse later on. Trust me). It's pretty funny, but I mean, it's a fic, so it's alright, isn't it? Hopefully I'll be incorporating canon ideas, at least partially. So expect Accelerator to be getting a cane soon, even if it's obtained through a completely non-canon method. If only because it will make things funny.

I'm hoping to have the next two chapters out before the To Aru Kagaku no Choudenjibou anime starts, but...uh, don't hold your breath. I expected to finish this chapter within a month, and look how that went: a chapter twice as long I intended(And took three times as long to write).

DISCLAIMER: Honestly, do you think I'd really own To Aru Majutsu no Index? Have you seen how long it takes me to update? And there are, what? Almost twenty volumes of the light novel out already? You think I can write that fast?

Scientific Control

He was going to be mentally linked to them. The realization hit him like a ton of bricks. And he would know, too, because he had been hit by two tons of bricks. Sort of. He at least knew that a ton of bricks was a lot of bricks, but any brick(real or metaphorical) could still be deflected by his powers(or simply his state of mind). Either way, the proposition was – as he would find later many things that week were – completely new to him.

It was afternoon now, and a day had already passed since he heard the messed up news of his messed up condition. Blinking, Accelerator sat up and looked about his blank, boring, aggravatingly white room. It seemed so...Empty, so bare. It was also pretty quiet, though he could faintly make out the murmur of doctors and nurses doing their jobs throughout the rest of the building.

He sighed.

Damn hospitals. No wonder he always heard people griping about them so much. Nothing to do except sit there, feeling sorry for yourself.

Only Accelerator never felt sorry for himself. Accelerator never felt sorry for anyone. Ever.

Er, well, except maybe that one time. Yeah, the one that got him in that horrible institution in the first place. How he had sorta felt sorry for the Last Order and the Sisters. But that wasn't so much feeling sorry for those electric brats as it was...Something else.

Accelerator was never good with emotions or anything. Anger, hate. Those were easy. They fueled your ability to fight, and when you were pissed the adrenaline rush was amazing. Some would call them 'negative' emotions. Accelerator didn't think that way. Morals be damned.

So, it was quite difficult for Accelerator, who actually enjoyed harboring such dark emotions, to figure out why he had ever extended a helping hand for that girl. From almost every angle the action seemed regrettable, so just...why? He had to figure it out.

Ten minutes later and Accelerator had at least some of the facts straight. He knew there wasn't any reason to not save her – it wasn't like he hated her, or anything, even given how annoying she was. He had also managed to rule out the basic reasons normal people would save someone else. Those of "positive" emotional nature. Compassion, love, etc. Easily ruled out because he didn't really care for anyone but himself. Thus, lacking all the normal, humane reactions to the situation, Accelerator ended up almost exactly where he had started started, just trying to figure out why he had picked that path, out of his two options – truly, it all boiled down to why he had picked the choice that he did. He could have just as easily killed her, and the entire ordeal would have been over with.

Back to his reasoning, he figured there wasn't anything to gain out of saving her, at least monetarily. Despite the entire Sister experiment costing God-knows-how-much, she probably didn't even have a penny to her name. Her attire upon their first meeting was quite indicative of that fact. He went back to his emotion list.

Empathy, or pity?

...Those were closer. Accelerator knew what it was like to be pitiful. And to pity others. But that just wasn't it. Pity alone wouldn't have been enough for him to act in a way that would endanger his well-being.

...Guilt, maybe?

Bingo.

Guilt, yeah, that was it. Because empathy wasn't one of his strong points. In the end, he figured it was less like "I feel bad that you're all going to go insane within the hour, let me help out," and more like "oh, yeah, sorry – I kinda feel bad(not) about killing half of you. Y'know, like...say, ten thousand or so? So, here's to make up for it." He figured he must have racked up some sort of debt, having killed so many already. But he did not like being in debt to anybody – it made it hard to stay isolated. He was always alone, and he pretty much liked it that way. Saving the little girl was just his way of 'thanks.' No, wait. That wasn't it. 'Please?' 'Salutations?' He frowned.

Accelerator never was one to congratulate, or apologize, or use courteous words in general. He supposed it didn't really matter. The little girl had come to accept it, whatever it was, right?

Speak of the devil, Accelerator thought. Even through the door, he could begin to hear the screeching voice of the Last Order, booming about the hospital. She was probably loud enough to wake the dead("...gonna visit Accelerator, announces MISAKA, MISAKA tells the world!"), and he could only imagine the chaos raging outside of his room. He heard a crash, and a few panicked shrieks. Man, that girl did not know how to stay out of trouble.

He sighed and shook his head, giving a light smile to the humor of her antics, while the sounds outside escalated in quantity as well as magnitude.

And then, suddenly - Oh, crap. She's coming to visit me. His eyes shot wide open. It was obvious, really, because there would be no other reason for her to be wreaking havoc in a hospital – the one that was taking care of him – other than to make a commotion announcing her arrival to visit him. It was just that his whole try-not-to-think thing had him missing even the most blatant of details. It would have been safe to assume that his IQ sat at about fifty, for the time being.

Because he was busy panicking, Accelerator did not notice his door opening. In walked in a nurse, dragging in tow a certain trouble-making Misaka-clone by the back of her shirt. The little girl had her arms crossed and was voicing her opinion of the situation("...didn't do anything, mumbles MISAKA, as MISAKA puts society at fault").

The nurse took a step into the room, and lifted the girl in front of her. The Last Order tried to look innocent. She actually seemed a little cute as she hung there, feet dangling a full foot off the ground.

"Excuse me, sir." The voice startled him, knocking him out of his thoughts and back into reality.

"Huh?" He turned his head and saw the two, a blank look on his face. His mouth dropped. He blinked.

The gears of his mind instantly jammed, coming to a complete halt.

"Uhh..." Great. He, Accelerator, the mighty level 5, was sitting there like an idiot for the umpteenth time that day. And all because of that damn. Freaking. Brat. Who, by the way, still managed to give him a goofy smile despite her obviously uncomfortable position. She even waved.

His mind currently reeling through a mantra of what the hell do I do, what the hell do I do, and his mouth letting out various flavors of "uh," "uhm," and "err," Accelerator was completely unfit to grasp the implications of just what was happening.

The nurse lifted the little girl up a little higher.

"Do you know how much trouble this girl has caused? Are you aware that this is a professional medical institution? What, do you think that this is some sort of playground?"

Accelerator made no move to answer her, although given the circumstances he couldn't even if he tried. Which was fine, because the nurse kept on talking, without missing a beat.

"This girl has been left defenseless inside a hospital. Not only could she have compromised a delicate medical procedure, but she could have brought harm to herself and or others. There are many risks involved with caring for patients – do you know how much damage an innocent patient could have suffered due to her rampant disregard for safety, and the the most basic rules of society?"

He just gaped while the nurse kept throwing question after question that he was simply in no condition to answer, while the gears in his head ground against each other so hard he could practically hear them screeching. Must have been creating a lot of friction, too, because he was hit with a massive migraine.

"Oh," the nurse paused momentarily to point at him, noticing something, "your neck. A voice synthesizer?"

"Huh?" Feeling at his neck, he felt the device that was connected there, "Uh, yeah," Accelerator barely managed to rasp. Unknowingly, the mechanical voice that came out of his mouth gave the illusion that the reason he couldn't respond before wasn't due to the fact that he didn't know what the heck to say. "I, uh, just got it yesterday."

"That explains it. Sorry, I didn't realize you had just gone through extensive treatment."

Setting the girl down so that her feet actually touched the floor, but still sure to keep a good grip on her shirt, the nurse sighed and started her interrogation once more.

"I'll try again. Do you know this girl?" Really, he should have taken into account that had he said no, the poor little girl would be forced off the premises, an event that would have pleased him greatly. But before he could think otherwise, Accelerator told her the truth.

"Yeah," he said. He immediately regretted it.

The nurse chuckled softly, and finally let loose her grip on the little girl. The Last Order shrieked with glee and ran over to next to the bed, already chatting up a storm. The nurse looked amused. "Well, I suppose it isn't completely your fault, then, if you're in such a condition. I'll go get the doctor, and make sure it's alright for you to be up."

The nurse promptly turned, walked out, and shut the door, and Accelerator was left with a certain girl with certain annoying tendencies, and the worse part was that he could have stopped it from happening. More than once, now.

The Last Order beamed. "MISAKA's real happy, you know. MISAKA's visiting because you saved her life! 'MISAKA says sincerely, as MISAKA speaks for all the Sisters," she continued on and on with her praise for him, which might have ended up somewhat endearing – if it wasn't so damned annoying. It just kept going, and going, and going... Her and her damn 'appreciation' of his actions.

'Cause, yeah, Accelerator felt really appreciated. Maybe it'd have been better if the annoying girl did go insane, and all of her kind would have ended up crazy. They're already crazy enough, Accelerator thought dryly, the virus probably wouldn't have done anything anyways. Nobody would have ever even noticed. All that rapid body development must have been bad for their brains. And possibly the whole 'born-to-die' thing. Not that he'd admit to being at fault for that.

Finally having enough of it all, he lay back down on the bed forcefully, and turned so his back to the girl, choosing instead to look out the window.

"Leave me alone," he began to protest, "you damn brat."

His requests fell on deaf ears, because the girl just kept on talking and talking. Listening to that kind of thing was tiring, in the way that it was tiring to listen to a broken record player for hours on end. Maybe he'd try and get some sleep. So, Accelerator decided to just close his eyes and try to ignore her. Normally, though, he could have just blocked out all the vibrations around him and just sit in nice, blissful silence. But he couldn't do that now, because he wouldn't be able to even if he tried. In fact, it would probably fry his brain...

...He tried not to think about it. Too much thinking and he'd be done for.

Or, at least, he thought about not thinking about it. Then, the thinking started to screw up his thoughts. God damn it, he thought. Thinking about not thinking again was messing up his head. And thinking about thinking about not thinking got him thinking about it, or at least he thought, because he could remember thinking about –

– Any more damn thinking and Accelerator may have been better off committing suicide just to save himself from the pain of it all. So, Accelerator was left to lay there, gripping his head and fidgeting, cursed with the ability of the mind but with no thoughts with which to allow himself.

Oh, and the voice of a girl so high pitched it most likely bordered on the edge of human perception. That was freaking annoying, too.

Between all his griping and writhing in pain, a thought slowly crept into Accelerator's mind. It gnawed at him, and he shifted in the bed to get more comfortable. He looked at the girl. She was still as annoying as usual: talking, and talking, and talking, of course. He frowned and squinted while still ignoring her words, trying to observe her better. Something's not right... He just couldn't place his finger on it. It was something beyond her normal antics, something that he should have noticed long ago...

It had been bugging him. She was talking to him like they were damned childhood friends, or something. There was a sense of familiarity she seemed to have that just didn't fit. What had brought that about? What, was this a side-effect of her gratitude towards him? He had saved her, that much was fact – even if his reasons for doing so were unclear. But it was just that the way he had saved her...

Then it hit him. Not as hard as a ton of bricks, but rather like when some guy takes a really heavy book and smacks you across the back of the head, the realization hit him. He stared at her.

It came out as a barely audible whisper. Or it would have, if the speaker attached to his neck wasn't on practically full volume.

"You should have forgot." Yeah, what the hell was up with that? He had completely re-written her personality files(with only his powers, a feat that Accelerator would forever be proud of, end results be damned), so she should have reverted to a state where she had never met him before. Her memories should have been deleted, gone, tossed away as rearranged clumps of electrons in her child-sized brain.

For a second she stopped talking, and gave him a quizzical look. "What are you talking about? It was a few weeks ago, there's no way MISAKA could have forgot, says MISAKA –"

"What the hell?!" He suddenly burst. He was in no mood for her innocent act. "I completely wiped your mind! Don't you get it?"

The little girl was taken aback by the sudden action. For a second she looked surprised, and even just a little bit hurt. But, as quickly as it had come, the moment was gone, replaced with a wave of realization and enthusiasm.

"Ah! You mean the personality files!"

...And she was shouting again. Of course. Oh joy. It even seemed to be about twice as loud as last time. Accelerator grit his teeth in pain while she carried on with her explanation, " the whole MISAKA network is connected by our brains, remember? Every single MISAKA knows and remembers everything every other MISAKA does – As long as not all of us are dead, we can back up and restore our memories no matter how many times you delete them! MISAKA boasts as MISAKA haughtily dares you to try."

She had never really done anything to him, but with those words she was better off slapping him in the face. She would never forget. Never. He had wiped her mind knowing that she'd forget, but now...Once more that day, Accelerator was left speechless – bringing the official count to eight. Nine, if you count both times that thing during lunch("Sir, are you hungry? We have your food here...Uhm, he's not answering, is he all right?" It really didn't help that the nurse was new).

Luckily, before he had enough time to think about it enough to be hit in the face with true, raw, realization, the door swung open and the frog-looking doctor walked in once more.

"Well, how's our miracle patient doing? Not going deaf, are we?"

Accelerator deadpanned, and the doctor gave him a nervous laugh and a sympathetic look, showing that he knew what the teen was going through.

"Hey, doc...There's some thing I want to ask you. About my head, you know, when it hurts because of the thinking."

"Hm? I thought we went over this, already."

"Yeah, but, I mean...Sometimes, it feels like hell, like I'm going to freaking die from thinking too much, it just hurts so bad. But it's not like I'm even thinking hard, or anything!

He was struggling. He didn't like talking to people, especially when it was about himself.

"But I feel almost...Fine, now. Like I could think normally, or something. Sometimes it happens like this. Do you know why?"

Man, he must have been so desperate;he was practically pleading now. It didn't matter though. He surmised that he hit rock bottom long ago, and even he wasn't above asking for help when he really needed it.

"Well," the doctor began after much consideration, "the brain is quite complicated. The phenomenon you're experiencing could be due to any number of factors. For example, after experiencing a certain type of event numerous times, your brain creates many neural links to certain parts of the brain. Despite your brain's capacity being quite low, you can still take advantage of those paths, making it easier to react to situations your more familiar with, with people, and objects, and circumstances you're used to. As such, your brain should be bypassing all of the damaged parts to work close to its original ability.

"This should hold true for almost everything that doesn't involve the portions of the brain that were damaged – more specifically, a large percentage of your motor skills."

"...Huh," Accelerator thought about the answer and turned to look out the window. Which meant he wasn't paying attention when the doctor produced a needle and a test tube from his pocket.

Suddenly, Accelerator felt something stab into his arm. He screeched in surprise. The Last Order laughed at his wussiness.

"Hold still, I just need one more blood sample. For testing purposes." Removing the needle, he put all of the blood into the test tube, marked it, and returned the tube to its place in his pocket.

"Augh! Enough with the tests! Is there any way to get started on this damn thing, already? You know – whatever the hell it is that you're going to do to fix me." He grit his teeth and brought a hand up to tap his temple. "I'd really like it if I could think again without having to worry about my head exploding."

The doctor looked amused. "Don't worry, it won't actually explode. If anything, that would be the least of your worries." He chuckled and the little girl giggled, but Accelerator didn't find it the least bit funny.

"But, ah, that's what I came here to talk about..."

He went into more detail about what it was, exactly, that they were going to do to him. Connecting to the network, they had reasoned, would actually be quite simple. What was one more brain to ten thousand? Almost twenty minutes were spent going over the specifics of it all while The Last Order once again boasted about her abilities.

"...And that's about the gist of it. Your body seems healthy enough, actually, for us to start this 'treatment.' You heal fast, for your age. All that's left is to help out the mental side of things."

The doctor showed the tube again and wiggled it a little. The blood sloshed inside. He began rummaging through some drawers, in search of something.

"All I have to do is run this through a few, final, tests. Just to make sure."

Accelerator nodded slowly. So far, everything made sense. In theory, anyways.

"Well, if you're ready, then, we'll begin as soon as we get the results back. You're eager enough, that's for sure. Here, put this on." In the doctor's hands was a white shirt, with black, diagonal stripes that seemed to form a jagged, alternating pattern of 'v's going down it. Accelerator thought it would probably make him look like a messed up zebra. "Your old shirt wasn't in any condition to be worn again, and this is the closest thing we could find in such short notice. I hope you don't mind – but I'm quite sure you want to get out of that hospital gown as soon as possible."

With a raised eyebrow, Accelerator took the peculiar garment from the doctor's hands, and let his fingers feel the fabric. It seemed comfortable enough, at least.

Ah well, maybe a change in appearance would do him some good. Besides, the doctor was right. He'd do almost anything to get out of those messed up hospital clothes.

~-~-~

Accelerator didn't like the idea of connecting his head to anything, especially a group of messed up clones. While it was probably his only hope, he just didn't feel that it was a very well thought-out plan, putting his life in the hands of a girl who looked like she was eight(And in reality was probably less than a year old) and her ten thousand Sisters(Who, while looking around his age were probably less than four).

It wasn't personal, or anything. Accelerator just didn't really trust anyone, no matter how innocent they could look.

And yet, here he was, standing in front of this young girl, his apparent 'savior'(Wasn't it supposed to be the other way around?), who looked to be in a state of deep thought, eyes closed and arms extended. The doctor quietly observed a few feet away.

Suddenly, the girl jerked out of her trance and into her normal attitude, practically shouting once more. "Alrighty! MISAKA's gonna hook you up now, says MISAKA as MISAKA forces your brain in!"

"Wha-?!" But before he could so much mouth(synthesize) a word of protest, a surge of electricity gripped his brain, his body froze, and everything went black.

~-~-~

He didn't know how long the sensation lasted. He felt numb, and everything was going so slow, yet so fast. He didn't know where he was – for an instant he didn't even know who he was. He slowly regained himself, and found that he was right where he had been moments before, in the hospital. But it was different now. His body was separated from his mind – though how this was possible, he wasn't able to say. All he knew was that he was...Different, now, and that he was not alone. Swarming around him were others, many others, in a state a lot like his. He realized that it was all of the Sisters.

He was connected to the MISAKA Network.

The flow was somewhat calming; the slow current of thoughts was new and uncomfortable, but not completely unwelcome. It filled Accelerator with awe, to be connected to so many people at once. The Sister's weren't a very original bunch, so it was easy to mesh his thoughts with theirs because their ideas were so identical to each other. Instead of combating thousands of consciences for mental dominance, it seemed more like he just had to fit himself in with the giant, preexisting entity known as the MISAKA Network – that they were of one mind, that they were all one giant colony of Misaka-clones, with the Last Order, ironically enough, as their queen.

It was the Last Order herself that seemed to guide him through the complicated spiderweb of the network, leading him through the orderly but confusing hallways of the synthetic labyrinth. It was almost as if she was holding his hand, enthusiastically pulling him through the zigs and the zags of hallways the network consisted of. It was so huge, but traversing it was absolutely no problem. Accelerator figured electricity worked like that, or something.

It was so zen – he felt so insignificant, yet his mental perspective had never been so broad. He had no true physical presence, but it was easy to tell that everyone had a place, relative to one another.

And then, suddenly, it changed.

With a rush to his cranial muscles, the electricity shifted paths through his mind, racing through neurons and sending wave after wave of endless confusion to his head. His brain was overwhelmed by the thoughts, the commands, the signals that were sent to it, all but few not its own. Accelerator tried and failed at moving his eyes, and then realized he couldn't move anything else, either. His feet were in a wide stance, and his hands clutched his head with a grip so tight it felt as though it were wrapped around by a python. Bent over slightly, he tried moving his legs, his feet, his toes, his anything, but it was all to no avail.

The Last Order's grip on him was lost. He had completely lost control over himself, trapped within the giant web of the mental network.

His body attempted to regulate itself. He was certain his heart was still functional, his lungs were still working – if only indicated by his quick, ragged breathing and his heart pounding against his chest at a million beats per minute. It seemed that his body was all right, it was simply his mind that had been lost, or at least his control thereof. His body still sweat, he could hear his own ragged breaths, he could still feel everything – was his mouth this dry before? When was the last time he ate, or drank, anyway? God, why did he feel so weak?

Struggling, his mind stretched, shifted, all at once thinking, yet at the same time completely empty. Hungry. He was hungry. Briefly, he was cognizant of this, and his focus switched almost immediately to the floor. There were twenty-seven one-foot by one-foot tiles. His brain shifted gears once again. Wind speed outside was roughly seven miles per hour, in a general westward direction. There was a twelve percent chance of precipitation, rising to approximately forty-two by Wednesday. Humidity in the room was almost thirty percent, and the ambient noise around him reached roughly eighty-two decibels, seventy-nine percent of which was coming from the child-sized body to his left, fourteen from sources outside the room, six from-

In an instant, the sensation left as quickly as it had come. All the random thoughts ended. For the first time in his life, Accelerator truly realized what it meant to have control over himself, and he had never been happier to just be able to blink. His facial expression shifted from relief to fear to pain and then finally set on a mixture of all three.

Panting, Accelerator fell backwards to sit on the ground, legs out in front of him. He let the muscles of his body loosen, and eased the death grip on his own head. No matter how much he tried to relax, however, he still couldn't shake the feeling of fear coursing through his body, or the random jolts of surprise, or the fidgety movements of his arms and legs. Slowly, however, his breathing started to become much more normal, and then he turned wide eyed to the people beside him.

The Last Order had been yelling with worry, apparently. Teary eyed, she fidgeted with her fingers and bit the lower portion of her lip, eyes shifting up and down, from the floor, to Accelerator, and back again.

The doctor's face was unreadable, and was partially hidden by the clipboard upon which he was furiously taking notes.

Slowly, Accelerator rose, stumbling as he did so, but by grabbing the side of the bed, he managed to steady himself into standing up. When the feelings of fear and shock began to subside, they were slowly replaced by the bubbling anger inside of him.

Accelerator frikken hated hospitals.