A Certain Strange Scenario

Quick disclaimer: I don't own a dang thing involving the To Aru Majutsu no Index franchise. Not the characters, not the setting, not the names, not the universe's terms and lore. Nothing at all. This work is a fan-made labour of love and will not generate any form of gain for me, monetary or otherwise. To Aru Majutsu No Index is written and owned by Kamachi Kazuma, and illustrated by Haimura Kiyotaka.

A/N: Before I present the story, I would like to inform you that this first chapter, while having a considerable amount to do with the overall plot of the story, doesn't feature any canon characters. It serves as an introduction to an original creation I require for the plot to work. Don't worry, the current, non expository flashback stuff will be coming next chapter and beyond. This won't be a recurring thing, I promise. Now, I welcome you to A Certain Strange Scenario. All criticism, especially constructive, is welcomed.

May 5th, 2006. 4:38 AM.

The weakened pyrokinesist couldn't even put up a fight. The two burly bruisers, probably a couple of hired thugs who dragged him into this synthetic, sterile environment were cruel and merciless. Under normal circumstances, his ability could have turned them both into a pile of smouldering ash, but these weren't normal circumstances. Through his blurry, unstable vision the boy was able to make out some of the features of his abductors. They wore baggy, dirtied slacks, tattered vests and large combat boots. One of the brutes looked to be bald and the other seemed to have long, unkempt brown hair, but it was hard for the boy to tell for certain in the state he found himself in. He tried to think, but the blaring Capacity Down frequency that assaulted his mind made all thoughts mangled and incoherent.

"Will this one do, sir?" The bald henchmen asked. "We found 'im loitering past curfew, alone, no witnesses."

The boy raised his head, his neck aching from the strain of Capacity Down's relentless onslaught on his senses. His vision swam as his eyes moved to look up, but he was able to make out a tall, broad shouldered young man with short, dark hair. He was wearing a waist length white lab coat, beige trousers and brandishing what looked like some sort of radio communication device.

The man slowly fell to one knee and placed two fingers beneath the barely conscious pyrokinesist's chin.

"We'll have to run some tests, find out what level it is. If it's level is low enough to comfortably assume the powers that be won't send Johnny Law and the Jack Off Brigade to put our heads on spikes, we'll have the go ahead. If not, we release it back into its natural habitat. You boys have been through this before. You know how it goes."

The stranger stood up, pulling his fingers away.

"We're heroes after all, and heroes show mercy."

The mercenary looked to his partner in crime and gestured over his shoulder.

"You heard the boss. Let's get this thing into its new home."

The unkempt mercenary nodded and chuckled under his breath, tightening his grip on the pyrokinesist's wrist, which caused his body to instinctively jump. As Capacity Down and the traumatic events of the night quickly began to take their toll, the pyrokinesist's vision went black, and he knew no more as unconsciousness wrapped its merciful arms around him and pulled him into a restless slumber.

A predatory smile stretched across the face of the stranger in the lab coat. A sickeningly sinister smile, one filled not with happiness or glee, but with calculating malice. A smile only a Kihara could produce.

The pyrokinesist was pulled back to consciousness by a loud voice filled with mania.

"Up, you little shit! We have work to do! No time to doddle around! Get up or I'll MAKE you get up!"

"I don't want to experience this. This hurts." The pyrokinesist thought. "Wait! I can think!" He exclaimed inside of his head. Capacity Down had been disabled, apparently. It didn't do anything to help his desperate situation, but at the very least, he could find comfort inside of his own mind. His muscles ached and cried out in protest as he willed his body to rise from the cold tile floor. He looked down at himself. He was still wearing his (now dirty and ripped) school uniform, a pair of black pants with a white button-up shirt and a black undershirt beneath it.

"There he is! He's up. You've been out for hours, curled up in a ball like a scared little cat. My name is Gunpei Kihara, firstborn son of the esteemed hero Amata Kihara. I'll be your humble host tonight."

The tone in the disembodied voice had become considerably less manic, and instead was now laced with a strong hint of mockery and contempt.

"Fucking esper animal. Dance for me."

The pyrokinesist actually examined his surroundings for the first time. He found himself in what appeared to be a makeshift testing facility that had clearly been converted to its present form from some sort of dusty, warn-down warehouse. The rusted metal walls, thick with dust confirmed his suspicions. The pyrokinesist looked up to a platform above him. "I must be in some sort of combat arena; and these people, they must be performing some sort of tests. But why would they abduct me? Espers are studied and researched legitimately all the time!" The pyrokinesist thought.

"Let's get D001 in there. This is what we've been waiting for, people! This will be the fruits of our labour! Let's see what our old buddy, old pal, can do against a level two pyrokinesist!" The disembodied voice proclaimed.

The pyrokinesist managed to make out who was talking. The lips of the tall dark haired stranger he encountered hours earlier were moving. "I guess he's calling the shots, this Gunpei guy," the pyrokinesist reasoned. "Maybe if I win whatever sick game he's bent on playing I can get myself out of this."

The pyrokinesist's head darted around the room as the eerie screeching of a tornado alarm began to reverberate throughout the echoing warehouse-turned-research facility. He spun around on his heel as he heard the sound of screaming steel doors opening. In front of him was another platform, adjacent to the first one which was now to his back. Two cyan orbs glowed in the darkness of the unlit plane beyond the opening doors.

"What the hell?! What's up there?! Hey! Someone! Anyone!" The pyrokinesist nervously said aloud.

What stepped out from the shadows of the steel doors, the pyrokinesist never would have imagined. It looked like a man, but it wasn't. It was made completely of a reflective silver material. It looked like some sort of man-made metal, but much smoother. The automaton leapt from the platform above the pyrokinesist, shaking the earth beneath the pre-teen esper and sending him flying.

The esper's heart slammed itself like a mental patient inside of him. His pupils widened and the beginnings of tears began to form at the corners of his eyes. The machine closed the distance between itself and the esper, and the pre-teen was able to get a better look at his opponent. It had two glowing orbs on its "face", each sitting in what looked like a socket, and a set of unsettling teeth, five on its upper jaw and five on its lower jaw that gnashed with each step it took. There was an orb on either of its shoulders, and a large triangle in the center of its torso, all of which were cyan in color.

"What is that thing? Keep it away from me! Fuck, get it away from me!" The esper cried as he desperately tossed himself away from the machine.

The pyrokinesist scrambled to his feet, scraping his open palms on the filthy warehouse floor as he began to flee.

"Are you going to let it go? Quit playing with your food, D001!" Gunpei exclaimed, the mania returning to his voice.

As the esper ran, running his hands over the dusty walls, trying in vain to find some sort of secret switch or unseen lever that would allow him to escape this living nightmare, he heard an unnatural, metallic voice come from behind him.

"ESPER ANOMALY IDENTIFIED ON LIBERATED SOIL. LOADING APPROPRIATE PERSONALITY DRIVER. SUCCESS. 'PROTAGONIST' PERSONALITY LOADED INTO RAM FROM DRIVER. LAUNCHING."

The pyrokinesist turned to the machine and thrust his hands forwards. A plume of superheated flame exploded from his palms as streams of fire circled around his arms and torso. "He's going to dodge, and then I'm going t-" the esper was unable to finish his thought as the machine walked headfirst into his attack, taking the brunt of the plume. Once the smoke cleared, it was revealed to the esper that the attack had succeeded in only pushing the machine back some thirty feet.

"No pathetic attack you can conjure will stop me. I'll trample your corpse, flesh-baby." The machine said in a malice-filled voice. The metallic effect behind its voice was still present, making the esper feel even more terrified.

The pyrokinesist ran to the other side of the makeshift arena, just beneath the platform Gunpei and his cohorts stood on, calculating and concerned looks on their faces. Gunpei stood out from the crowd as he looked absolutely thrilled, like a child in awe of some great spectacle.

"Let's see how you bastards like fighting this thing! I won't be your fucking guinea pig! I'll bring you down here with me!" The esper exclaimed, panic evident in his voice.

Flames formed around his hands before he unleashed a torrent of molten hot fire at one of the support beams that held the platform up.

Before the well-planned attack had the chance to hit the support beam, it was reflected by some invisible force. The stream bounced off of the unseen barrier it collided with and struck the slowly marching machine.

"Did you really think I would make it that easy for you to kill me? What are you, an absolute, brain damaged, mentally deficient fool?!" Gunpei yelled as he struggled to keep his laughter under control. The pyrokinesist's panic turned to rage as he turned to face the machine that was still creeping towards him at a frustratingly slow rate.

"Oh, the pain; it's unbearable." The machine mockingly spat at the esper. Its shiny metal "skin" had definitely been blackened by the stream of fire and the symbols on its face and torso had changed color; they went from cyan to bright yellow.

"ESPER ANOMALY PROVING DANGEROUS, MENTAL STATE DETERIORATING FROM APPROXIMATELY SEVENTY EIGHT PERCENT TO FIFTY FOUR PERCENT; RAISING THREAT LEVEL FROM 'LOW' TO 'MED' AND ADJUSTING COMBAT PROCEDURES ACCORDINGLY," the monotone robotic voice said, likely as a response to the collective damage it sustained.

Without warning, the machine broke into a high speed sprint. The pyrokinesist began gathering fire in his hands and managed to successfully launch a stream of flames at the machine as he ran backwards, trying not to trip over his own feet. The machine hurled itself into the oncoming fire and emerged charred but otherwise undamaged from the other side, its eyes and body symbols now glowing crimson. It leapt into the air and slammed into the esper with the full force of its body, knocking him to the unforgiving floor. The sickening sounds of tearing cloth and snapping bones was heard before an agonized scream was ripped from the throat of the pinned esper.

From a control panel in front of a small circular window on the east side of the warehouse, which the esper, in his panicked state neglected to see, a small, white haired man in a waist length lab coat and black dress pants peered down into the makeshift arena below with sweat on his brow. A glowing blue computer screen with some outdated operating system processed his commands. There was a single window open. It was covered in programming gibberish with a small, almost full glowing green bar at the bottom of the window.

"Please work." The little man said as he ran his hands through his scruffy beard.

He had put hours and hours of his life into this code on his own personal time when he hadn't been helping with the research for the development of the D-001 unit.

"This code will put an end to this. Even if they trace it back to me, through some manner I failed to see beforehand, even if Amata's monster of a son wrings my neck and destroys my home, this thing will end, and I will have done some good for this world, for this forsaken city."

He had been coding malware.

Malware specifically designed to infect the custom operating system developed for D-001 and exploit a piece of the puzzle the deranged Kihara had either forgotten about or had disregarded.

D-001 had wrapped a single hand around the broken esper's neck and lifted him into the air, slowly squeezing the life from his young body. The esper's lungs screamed for air as fire randomly jumped from his body, a few streams of uncontrolled flames charring the machine's body further.

"I wonder how dying feels. Maybe you'll tell me after I rip the spirit from your flesh and blood chest, weak little tissue paper thing," D-001 said.

"I hate you," the esper managed to choke out between gasps for air.

"Good. I hate you, too." The machine replied, cold and without regret.

The little old man's progress bar climbed from ninety five percent to ninety eight, hung for a few moments, and struggled to one hundred percent. A weak smile tugged at the old man's lips.

"I will-" D-001 was cut off before it continue whatever nefarious threat it was going to utter. It dropped the damaged esper to the ground in a heap as it grasped its head. "FATAL ERROR ENCOUNTERED, OPERATING SYSTEM RESTARTING IN ORDER TO PREVENT CATASTROPHIC DAMAGE," D-001 said as it fell to its knees and went off-line. The colored symbols on its body went dark, as did its eyes.

For a moment, the pre-teen was able to gasp for air and free himself from the grip of death.

"Fuck me, a glitch. Well, we know we have things to iron out with the software, or maybe the hardware. It doesn't matter! We're so close to another success!" Gunpei Kihara shouted, slamming his fist on the railing of the platform. It hurt, and his arm shook from the impact, but the pain was good.

D-001's lights returned, this time in their original blue coloration. It rose to its feet and cocked its head to the side. "OPERATING SYSTEM FIREWALL DISABLED. LAUNCHING ." the machine said to no one in particular.

"Wait, what? What the hell is this?" Gunpei asked, his pupils widening. He gritted his teeth as his hands gripped the platform tightly. "I don't remember programming anything like this. Someone shoot that fucking esper and get down there!" He roared.

"I wouldn't do that, if I were you. Put the gun down, Dr. Hikari."

Gunpei Kihara's jaw dropped. If it were possible for a human being's jaw to hit the hit the floor, it likely would have.

The machine's head had turned to face the platform. The stone faced female behind Gunpei slowly began to lower a firearm she had produced.

"This disgusting human is mine. It will be the first of many."

The machine raised its foot and, without warning, stomped down on the pyrokinesist's head. Brain matter, bone fragments and copious amounts of blood sprayed outwards on impact as the esper's head was crushed without effort; all the while D-001 maintained eye contact with Gunpei and his cronies.

"An excellent show, D-001, your performance was a little edgier than I would have liked from an advanced artificial intelligence-driven unit like yourself, but none the less, an excellent show! Bravo!" Gunpei Kihara yelled down at the machine happily.

"Do I make you feel well, Creator?" D-001 asked, jumping onto the platform from the arena in a single bound. "I hope I make you feel well."

Gunpei's face went from ecstasy to concern in a split second, but he quickly either forgot about it or buried the useless emotion.

"You make me feel very well, D-001."

"Good."