Disclaimer: I do not own "A Certain Magical Index" series or it's characters. Not even the nameless thugs that get beaten up off screen.

Preparations

Prologue 1 - Nightmare

"No, no, no..." Mikoto hurriedly rushes to the still falling body of the boy. She magnetically grabs a large metal plate and flies it under him. Mikoto carefully matches the boy's body's speed so that he can lay on the plate safely as she slowly lowers it to the ground. "Please be alright!"

As the metal plate touches the earth she can clearly see the boy's body in extremely bad shape, to put it simply without going into the bloody details.

Mikoto kneels down, shaking, and slowly pick up his head. "Hey," she speaks quietly. "Can you hear me?"

The boy weakly opens his eyes halfway, "Mi... ko... to...?"

"I'm here, everyone's here." Mikoto's voice slows down and trembles greatly.

"Did... I..."

"You did," the girl paused to cry and lose control of her sadness. "You stopped it."

"I... see... I'm... glad..." he lets out a heavy breath as his eyes close again.

"No you can't!" Mikoto starts to speak louder. "Wake up! Please! Don't go! Don't..."

It was no use, she can feel it, they all could. He was gone, all she can do now is cry loudly.

Her crying slowed down as she senses bodies walking closer from all around her, it was all of the boy's friends and allies, from everywhere.

"You killed him..." they chanted.

"No..." Mikoto protested.

"You killed him..." again they whispered in unison. "You killed him... You killed him..."

"No! No!"

"NOOOOO!" Mikoto jerks awake on her bed, breathing very heavily. She takes a moment to survey her surroundings, she was in her dorm room, her roommate is still sleeping and it was still very late at night.

"Just a dream," Mikoto held her head while trying to calm her breathing. "But why? Why did I suddenly have a dream like that?"

XXX

Prologue 2 - One Week Ago

It's the middle of the night and a bright sphere of light suddenly appears in an empty run down location. It sucks in several loose trash as it grows to the size of a car, then it vanishes instantly.

Where the light had originated was a silver masked and black robed hooded figure. It looks around the immediate area and starts walking in a random direction. It seemed to be looking for something.

Some punks had noticed this weird person and decided to cause trouble. "Hey, you lost?" one of them asked in an unpleasant way.

The figure stopped and turned its head in their direction.

"Yeah I'm talking to you, freak. This is our turf, so get off!"

The robed person simply raised a hand at the punk talking. His cell phone came flying out of his pocket and into the person's hand.

"Wha-HEY! You asked for it!" the punk leads the charge as he and his gang rush the strange figure.

The stranger merely pressed a button to see what it needed to see, "Perfect." It spoke through the mask, the voice was distorted but deep, the mask was meant to hide the speaker's voice. "It worked just as planned."

Done with the cell phone, the stranger tossed it in the middle of the downed gangsters. They were obviously attacked by some power in a very short amount of time. Whomever or whatever this stranger was, there's no doubt that it has tremendous power.

"Now I must prepare."

XXX

Touma Kamijou sighed as he walked the street on the way home after school. Normally one would be looking forward to a few days break from school.

(We finally get a break from school and the teacher gives us a ton of homework.) Touma pouted. (Knowing my luck, something is going to happen and I won't be able to do any of it.)

He arrived at a certain park with a certain vending machine. Touma was feeling incredibly thirsty and stands in front of the machine. This particular machine has a history to it, one which Touma would rather not think about. Right now he was weighing in on his chances with the darn thing.

"Surprise!" Someone jumped onto his back and clung onto him. Touma stumbled forward so hard his face hit the machine and a random drink popped out of it. "Did you miss me, Brother Touma?" The young girl giggled.

Touma peeled his face from the machine and carefully started to think. He doesn't recognize the voice at all so he's trying to figure out who out of every girl he knows has a small body.

Index, Komoe, Last Order, Agnese, Angelene... "Otohime?"

"Ah! You remembered!" Otohime giggled and rubs her face on Touma.

(That's right, the last time I saw Otohime was when we went to the beach.) Touma blushed a bit at the memory. (But thanks to Angel Fall she looked like Mikoto Misaka the whole time.)

"What are you doing here?" Touma asked her.

"I came to visit you silly."

"Visit me? By yourself?"

"Of course! I wanted to see you again. I even asked Mom and Dad."

"Your mother and father? Where are they?"

"Back home."

"What? You came here all alone?"

"She wasn't alone," it was then that Touma noticed an unfamiliar student with a Judgement armband just standing around. "Touma Kamijou was it? Her parents contacted the city and they agreed to let her have an escort into the city until she found you."

"That doesn't sound like your regular Judgment work. And why wasn't I told about this?"

"This is actually quite common during these breaks, and she wanted it to be a surprise," the Judgement student replies. "Anti-Skill are the ones to retrieve them outside the city and they later hand them over to us Judgement once inside the city." The student takes a quick look at the time. "Looks like you saved me a few minutes, I think I'll go relax a bit before returning to the office." And with that, the Judgment student was gone.

"Hey Touma!" Otohime jumps off of him and twirls around in front. "I saw a park on the way here a while back! Come on, come on and play with me there!"

(I never did play with her much while we were at the beach. I guess I'll make up for that here, homework be damned. I wasn't expecting to actually get them done anyway.) He picks up the drink form the vending machine and follows Otohime.

XXX

Touma's apartment phone rings loudly. The little freeloading blue haired, white robed nun, bored out of her mind, quickly jumped at the chance for some social activity.

"Hello?"

"Index?"

"Stiyl?"

"I'm just outside the door, there's something we need to talk about."

Index hurriedly opens the door for the red haired, black cloaked smoking man.

He steps in and looks around, "Oh? He's not here right now?"

"No, something must be keeping him." Index puffed. "And he better bring me some food."

"I think it's better this way," Stiyl tells her. "Let me get straight to the point. We believe that some high level, forbidden magic was used in Academy City recently."

"High level and forbidden?" Index ponders. "What kind?"

"We don't know yet," Stiyl tells her. "Last week our magicians have detected a strange magical aura suddenly appear in this city and it was gone just as fast. Although it was short, the traces of magical energy doesn't match anything we know, at least according to our agent here. But the traces that we could make out suggested that the spell interfered with the fabric of time."

"!" Index clearly knows the dangers of messing with time, and that there are several grimoires that have records of various beings attempting to time travel, but all have failed with disastrous results. "A successful time traveller? That's impossible!"

"That's what we thought too," Stiyl tells her. "But the possibility was always there."

"This is really serious, but why did they send you here? Couldn't your agent have contacted me? And how come it's only you, they should have sent more people for something like this."

"Right now all we have are rumours and guesses, no real facts, which is why only I've been sent to contact you. As for our agent, would you have trusted him?"

Index fell silent at that question. She didn't know who the agent is, so she doesn't know if she could trust that person.

"And there's more, according to him there's been multiple magical activity around the city in the past week, something about masked men. It may or may not be related but he's looking into it right now."

"Alright, let's go."

XXX

"What happened here?" Kuroko asks an Anti-Skill personal woman with blue hair. She was wearing her Judgement armband, she was here on business.

"It's the same as the other incidents around the city the past few days," the woman answers. "Several thugs pick a fight with some strange person wearing robes and a mask. This time it's a blue mask, and the power this time was water control."

"Another mask and power," Kuroko thinks for a moment, recalling information from past incidents. Within the last week there reports of gangs getting randomly beat up for no reason whatsoever. Except perhaps that the gangs were the ones that started the fight in the first place. What was in common with all the incidents were reports of men in robes wearing different colored masks. A green one that controls leaves and grass in the air, a yellow one that uses laser beams, a white one that controls the wind, and now this blue one which handles water.

"Like all the other cases, it doesn't look like we'll be able to get anything more around here," the woman interrupts Kuroko's thoughts.

"Even so, I'll stay for now and see if I can find out anything."

XXX

Mikoto sighs in disbelief. She's been looking for him since school finished yet she wasn't able to find him at all.

(AH! What am I doing?) Mikoto feels like she's getting a headache and holds her head in pain. "It's just a bad dream. Something like that can't really happen, can it?" Mikoto's mind suddenly recollects all the strange stuff that's been happening around Touma. (But... it's him after all...) Mikoto goes back to her search.

XXX

The sun begins to set over the city, Touma had spent the day with Otohime in a playground and park area. Right now Otohime is on a swing while Touma pushes her.

"Ahahaha!" Otohime is enjoying herself as Touma pushes her on the swing. "Higher Brother Touma! Higher!"

"Are you sure?" Touma asks. "Hang on tight then." He pushes the little girl slightly harder.

"Whee!"

"Please push Misaka too, Misaka requests as she sees a young girl having fun."

"Huh?" Touma got distracted by the sudden appearance of Mikoto, and he gets hit in the head by Otohime. He stumbles a bit and falls to the ground.

"Are you alright Brother Touma?" Otohime asks as she continues to swing.

"I'm alright," Touma picks himself up. He easily finds a familiar pendant on Mikoto's person.

"Brother Touma? Misaka did not now you had a younger sibling, Misaka confesses surprise at the sudden revelation."

"She's my cousin," Touma answers. "She can be quite a handful."

"That's mean!" Otohime pouted but she continues to swing by herself.

"So," Touma turned to Misaka. "Misaka's Sister, 10032 was it? What are you doing here?"

"I was merely passing by after I had finished my check up when I saw you two here. Misaka answers honestly. She seems to be having fun while you were pushing her, I want to be pushed too. Misaka makes the request again."

"Umm, aren't you a little old for these swings?" Touma asks.

"I am younger than her, Misaka counters with a hint of agitation while pointing at the girl on the swing."

"Wha- but that's..." Touma struggles for words, hoping to find a way to argue without revealing anything in front of Otohime, but gave up. "Okay... here, have a seat."

Misaka quietly gets on the other swing. Touma starts to gently push her forward.

"Is this the first time you've been on a swing?"

"No, Misaka answers. I have played on some swings before with Sister, Misaka recalls a certain day in the past."

"It sounds like you guy are getting along quite nicely." Touma slowly pushes harder with each swing.

"She even let me play in Daihaseisai when I was mistaken for her, Misaka reports."

"What?" Touma was more surprised than happy to hear that. (Then again the Sisters are physically identical clones of Mikoto, so it would be easy to mistake one of them for the original. It's best not to get any deeper into this, especially since I had my own adventure during the festival, and not one I'd like to talk about.)

"I had fun, and that's all Sister was worried about, Misaka continues."

Touma smiles, "Well, are you having fun now?"

"It's, different. Misaka struggles to define how she's feeling. I am enjoying this, it's soothing and relaxing. Misaka blushes while admitting her feelings."

A few moments pass of almost silence (Otohime giving a few shrills and giggles every now and then).

"Excuse me," Otohime suddenly speaks to Misaka. "How do you know Brother Touma?"

Touma is suddenly worried about how to answer that question.

"This boy saved my life, Misaka answers with the truth."

"Huh? So you found her surrounded by thugs in the middle of the night and rescued her?" Otohime asks Touma.

"Well…" That scenario sounds more likely to come from Misaka herself than Misaka's Sister. "Something like that."

"You're so cool Brother Touma!" Otohime was gleeful. "How did you pay him back?"

"W-wait Otohime," Touma cuts in. "I just did that because I wanted to. I don't need to be paid back."

"Even if Misaka died for him ten thousand times it wouldn't be enough to pay him back, Misaka says under her breath."

"Did you say something?" Touma didn't hear what Misaka had said.

"N-nothing, Misaka cuts the conversation short."

"She talks funny," Otohime randomly says aloud.

(You're just now noticing that?)

"Wheee!" Otohime jumps off of her swing at the highest point and lands on her feet. "I'm getting thirsty Brother Touma, let's go back to that vending machine and get a drink!"

"That machine's busted, it'll just eat your money," Touma informs her.

"But you got a drink out of it."

"That's cause you slammed my face into it!"

"Then we'll just have to do it again! Hee hee."

"Are you kidding me?"

"Perhaps I can help, Misaka offers her assistance as she slows down her swinging."

"Not you too."

"Misaka insists, Misaka glares."

XXX

Stiyl and Index arrive at a run down location of the city. There was an invisible barrier put up around the area to keep civilians out, which gives them free room to investigate. The orange sunlight was still just bright enough to see everything clearly.

"Even though the magic was casted a week ago, even I can still feel traces of it."

"Warping time is very dangerous, the effects could alter the future that's supposed to be into a future that shouldn't be."

"That sounds like science," Stiyl lets out what's in his mind.

"Sorry, I've been hanging out with one of the teachers. She knows a lot about science. She pretty fun to be around." Index carefully trances her fingers on the ground. "You've already met her, she's a short one with pink hair."

"HER?!" Stiyl screams in surprise, realizing who she was talking about.

"Yeah, science has some crazy things going on." Index rubs some dust between her fingers. "Hmm..."

"Did you find out anything?"

"It's a little weird," Index answers. "I can feel traces of not one magic, but several. There's at least 3 different spells here, and according to my grimoires, they all relate to time."

"So the possibility of a time traveller just skyrocketed."

"There's more," Index continues. "None of the spells could have had enough power to send someone back in time on their own, even with all these spells casted together it would take a tremendous amount of power to cast something like this. There's no way that's possible."

"Not according to our current knowledge, right?"

Index shudders at the thought. What they know now could have changed in the time from where the possible traveller came from. "If that's the case then-"

Stiyl quickly grabs Index and jumps away, they narrowly avoided being struck by a jet of water.

Stiyl gently puts Index down and faces the attacker, a mysterious figure covered in robes wearing a blue mask.

XXX

"Is that all, Uiharu?" Kuroko talks on the phone to her partner in the office.

"Yes, Shirai, you can return to the office and file a report."

"Alright, I'll see you soon." Kuroko hangs up. "I hate filing reports. I haven't seen Sissy since school finished. I need to see her smiling face in order to get through this obstacle!" Kuroko is suddenly fired up. Though that fire drastically died down when she hears an alarm in the distance. "That sounds like, a vending machine, in this area? Don't tell me..."

Kuroko quickly uses her teleportation ability to follow the sound of the alarm, expecting to find her precious Sissy.

What she found was her Sissy, a certain boy, and a young girl, all knocked out by a bench right next to the vending machine.

"What?"

The bench seemed to move by itself away from the three bodies. Kuroko turns to see a figure covered in robes wearing a black mask.

XXX

XXX

Author: Well, here's the first chapter. A lot of things are happening at the same time. There's Touma, Otohime and Misaka 10032, Stiyl and Index, Mikoto, and finally Kuroko. It kinda feels rushed though.

Not to mention all those masked and robed guys. Who could they be? Where did they come from? Well, all will be answered in due time (pun?).

Changes from original idea:

Mikoto's nightmare - That's a very important piece in the overall plot, I thought I'd add it to give a little more ominous feeling through the whole thing.

Characters - Saten and Uiharu were supposed to meet with Mikoto and Kuroko, but that proved difficult for me and the plot so I kept them separate. Several other characters were planned to be put in the story but were cut out completely or replaced with another. Which include but not limited to the other Sisters (19090 was to warn Mikoto about 10032's predicament), Sasha and Kaori.

Characters, I think, is my biggest weakness in writing fanfics. The problem lies in that I want to include as many characters as I can within a fic instead of focusing on just a few characters which will make it easier to handle. I really have no idea why I want to cram so many characters into a story.

Also I tend to prefer action fics with comedy and romance both taking 2nd.