Whoo! There's a section for this stuff! I'm assuming you know what To Aru Majutsu no Index is, then, if you found such a – currently small – section of fandom. Or, I suppose, To Aru Kagaku no Choudenjibou/Railgun, but that probably won't help you, because this fic will eventually contain (major?) SPOILERS for the former To Aru's Anime. I'll probably be vague enough to not completely ruin anything, but to a certain extent you're just going to have to know some things. Basically, if you don't know who/what/where/when/why "The Last Order" is...You don't know enough.

Once again, SPOILER ALERT for To Aru Majutsu no Index. The anime at least, because this fic will probably end up being canon breaking so bad...If it isn't already(Novels being out for quite a while, and all)...But I digress. That's why it's called fan fiction, right?

On that note, I must say that I DO NOT OWN(in any way, shape, or form) To Aru Majutsu no Index.

Enjoi.

Experiment Initialization

In the great Academy City, birds chirped as the sun began to rise, giving light to the hustle and bustle of students going to their classes and adults going to work. The cleaning robots made one final sweep of the streets, and the quite murmur of idle chit chat began to rise, the sounds of cars, of people walking, of people talking to one another increased, and suddenly the city became more active, awaking from its slumber during the night.

One young man, however, was much less a part of this morning ritual than usual. Groaning, a white haired teen rose from the depths of sleep, blinking as he was greeted by the blank, white ceiling of the room he was in. Rising into a sitting position, he frowned.

Accelerator looked around him. He was sitting atop a white bed with white sheets and a white pillow. Besides the large window to his left, there were three nondescript, white walls encasing a shiny, white tiled floor. He wasn't in his room, that was for sure. He looked down, at his clothes. Just what the hell was he wearing, anyways? It was a peculiar garment, and basically looked like a frikken bed sheet was tied together in a sorry attempt to protect his dignity. What was up with this place? And everything was so god-damned white. White walls, white floors, white bed, white clothes – even the damn clouds outside looked whiter than usual. What, were they mocking him, or something? His teeth clenched. Whoever pulled this had some nerve, messing with him. Once he found them, they'd be getting it, for sure...

First, however, he needed to find where he was. No sense plotting revenge when you were lost, after all. He tried to think back, to what would be the source of all this misfortune...

And then he remembered. The MISAKA, the virus, the gunshot, all of it. He remembered his odd temporary companion, his uncharacteristically heroic actions, and the bizarre fight that followed. If you called him being shot at while completely defenseless a fight. But why had he done it all, anyways? For all he went through, he just barely managed to possibly save the world, and in return the world decides it'd be funny to put a bullet in his face. Damn, that little girl was more trouble than she was worth... Now he was in what, a hospital or something?

He grunted.

He wasn't complicated, really. He just wanted to live his life in relative peace, simply content with the knowledge of being the strongest. And he had had that. Until he met a certain boy with a certain right hand and it had all gone down from there.

Regardless of prior circumstance, Accelerator's buried desires had taken back seat to the need to find out just what the hell was going on. Waking up in a hospital was something that had never happened before, on account of the whole pretty-much-never-been-hit-ever thing, and the new experience was not exactly a pleasant one. He heard the door open, and in walked a bubbly, smiling childish face owned by a certain genetically synthesized, electric, annoying little brat.

For some reason, his head really hurt.

"You're awake!" The voice burst, MISAKA scrambling to a space at the side of his bed. For a moment, he had the urge to use his powers to block all noise to try and go back to sleep. "MISAKA just knew you'd wake up soon! 'says MISAKA, MISAKA says with certainty." As though to emphasize the meaning of her words, she stretched her smile and her arms as far as they would go, waving her hands around in an excited fashion.

Ugh, He thought. Really, of all the thousands they made, the only one to suffer from the extreme personality defect just had to be the certain one that stuck to him. Taking a glance to his right, he saw the Misaka-clone in question, eyes bright and cheery, swaying her head from side to side. She made a bunch of squealing, high-pitched girly noises, and Accelerator took the time to think of the other, tone deaf ones of her kind in comparison. Really...He hung his head and sighed. I guess in reality it's both types that suffer from screwed up personalities.

Accelerator's body clenched, and he grit his teeth. Man, why was his head hurting so much?

"MISAKA heard all about it, you know. The doctor said you were really brave, and had done all this stuff to save MISAKA 'says MISAKA, MISAKA knows..."

The room's colors seemed to blend, and Accelerator had the urge to throw up right then and there. To his left, the window gave visage to a sky outside that seemed to be so blindingly bright and...green? The clouds were pink now, too. Wha...? Wasn't there something about them just a second ago that pissed him off? He brought his hand in front of his face, but it was so hazy that he could hardly tell the difference between it and the girl at his side.

He looked at her through squinted eyes. She seemed to still be talking, but her voice sounded like a jumbled mess of syllables bubbling from someone speaking underwater. Her shirt looked purple now, too, although he could still discern what seemed to be her energetic body moving in every direction imaginable.

If she realized his discomfort, though, she didn't give any indication of it. She just kept talking, and talking, and talking...Everything warped quickly, becoming even more devoid of recognizable traits than before. Her voice was starting to sound eerily similar to the screech of nails streaking down a chalkboard...

"...And MISAKA heard you even got shot!" That shout in particular had sounded to him like a dying cat on the side of the road.

And it was the last thing he heard before his head hit the pillow.

~-~-~

When he woke this time, his vision was still blurry. He squinted and rubbed his eyes, and eventually he could make out the face of the clock on the wall. It was about half past three in the afternoon.

Good – his eyes seemed to be working again.

He turned his head, and saw the kiddy-MISAKA sitting in a chair next to his bed, frowning and arms crossed.

"Why didn't you say you weren't feeling good?! You're supposed to be getting rest right now! 'worriedly, MISAKA – MISAKA shouts!"

Yeah. Great. Sure, his vision was all good. But maybe he would end up deaf soon, at the volume this shorty was yelling at.

"You need rest, and, and nutrition! You're so skinny! 'firmly notes MISAKA, as MISAKA puts her hands on her hips."

Really. He was pretty sure that he had lived long enough to know what his body could and couldn't handle. He needn't be berated by a brat in such a manner. If memory served correctly, he was the one that saved her in the end of it all, anyways. Andit was probably her fault he got that crazy headache.

As the child raised a finger and opened her mouth to nag at him more, the door opened with a soft 'click' and the doctor walked in.

Or at least Accelerator thought he was the doctor. Doctors usually wore those white suits kind of like scientists, right? Maybe it made them feel like they were smarter than everyone else. Or was proof of it.

The man gave a soft chuckle. "Well, well. Look who's finally woken up. Try to stay that way this time, alright?" He pointed to himself, "I'm the doctor. And a good one, if I do say so myself. We'll get you better in no time."

Accelerator eyed the man. He kind of looked like a frog, but he seemed alright. Accelerator trusted the experts to know what they were talking about. Usually.

Grabbing the chart attached to the unfortunate patient's bed and producing a pen from his coat, he marked down a few things in what Accelerator suspected was some mysterious doctor-code or something. Accelerator sure as hell couldn't read it. But it wasn't like he had much knowledge of hospitals to begin with. The whole never-been-hit thing again, and all.

What...Accelerator began to say, but realized he couldn't speak. All that came out of his mouth was a short, rough wheeze. Reaching to his throat, he felt something attached there, a device completely wrapped around his neck.

Answering his unvoiced question, the doctor looked up, "that device there is connected directly to your voice box. It'll stimulate the muscles in your throat, reproducing your voice. It just needs to be calibrated – the shot you took damaged the part of your brain that deals with processing what you want to say and how to say it."

He gave a light chuckle and said, "you should be thankful to the scientists of this city. Normally, getting you to talk again would take at least a year of intense rehabilitation. With this, it shouldn't take more than few minutes. Just try talking like you normally would, and the device will automatically process your vocal patterns. It won't sound exactly the same, but it should be close enough. Technology is wonderful, isn't it?"

A while of raspy sounds and failed attempts later, and Accelerator managed to speak.

"What the hell," he asked, though his voice was unnatural, forced, if just barely recognizable as his, "is going on?"

The doctor then proceeded to inform Accelerator of a bunch of stuff that got all screwed up in his body after the events of that night. It had been almost a week ago, Accelerator learned. 'Miracle you're alive,' 'severe damage to your frontal cortex,' blah blah blah, the general doctor talk and such, he figured, and was suddenly glad that he hadn't been in hospitals before – it was quite evident that he wasn't missing much. After a while he was starting to get tired of it all when the frogish doctor said something that irked him a little.

Apparently, his powers were shot. The doctor explained that, with the whole getting shot in the frikken head thing, the processing capabilities of his brain had been significantly reduced. He had reflected the bullet just in time to not die, but the neurons in his brain suffered shock and seemed to be, currently, irreparable. Despite all the extensive surgery they had to do to just keep him living, some things were just beyond a doctor's ability.

"So," the doctor concluded, "try to think too hard and you'll suffer adverse side effects, because your brain will just be trying beyond its capacity. Headaches, dizziness, loss of coordination...And that's just the beginning."

Ah, that explained it. The headache from earlier must have been because of that. He started to dwell on the fact for a moment longer, but then his head started to hurt. He thought he shouldn't think so much anymore. And in thinking of this, his head hurt even more. The whole intentionally thinking of not thinking was throwing him off, and he was really starting to get pretty damn pissed, even if it was all his own fault in the first place.

Possibly noticing his mental dilemma, the doctor placed his hand on his shoulder and gave a reassuring smile. "Just try to relax, alright? This will all go a lot more smoothly that way, and it will make control over your thoughts easier." The doctor frowned. "Pent up stress causes panic, which can, among other things, lead to the release of hormones and other chemicals, like adrenaline, and those affect not only your body, but your mind as well."

Accelerator took a second to try and calm down. Relax, relax...Alright, I can do that...He took a few deep breaths. Breathe in, breathe out...Not that hard, right? He tried not to think about it, and later he faintly realized his head wasn't hurting so much anymore.

No relatively calm – at least as far as could be said, concerning the power-crazy borderline murderer, which meant he was still a little ticked off – Accelerator looked at the doctor. "So," he said, "what happens if I try to think to hard, then? That was a pretty bad headache I had earlier. I don't want any more surprises."

The doctor's face was sullen.

"Eventually, your brain wouldn't even be able to process your body's natural functions, including involuntary muscles. You wouldn't notice it, but you'd stop digesting, sweating, blinking – the little things."

The doctor put his hands in his pockets and looked Accelerator dead in the eyes. Even Accelerator, someone who could count the number of times he'd been scared in his entire life using only the fingers on one hand, was frozen in fear.

"Prioritizing your current thoughts, your brain will then cut off control of your lungs. Then, your heart might even stop – you'd just forget to make your heart beat. You'd most likely suffer a stroke or a heart attack, or maybe even both. You'd be lucky if all the lack of oxygen knocked you unconscious soon enough for your brain to start working again."

"Lucky? How the hell would I be lucky?" Accelerator didn't bother hiding his rage. Just what kind of life was that, no thinking or anything?

"Because," the doctor countered, without skipping a beat, "if you aren't rendered unconscious, or unless you manage to purposely beat your own heart and remember to breathe, you'll suffocate, unless lack of blood flowing in your body has all your body parts dying individually first. Gangrene will set in, which will cause dead tissue of your fingers and hands to fall off, then your toes and feet, and after that..." Oh, boy. Accelerator certainly did not like the sound of that. It shut him up completely.

"Like I said, if you do get knocked unconscious and your heart remembers to beat, you'll already have been in an oxygen-deprived state long enough that most of your remaining, working brain cells will be dead. Then, even you, one of the level 5's of Academy City, will be rendered comatose, and you'll probably spend what remains of your life in this very room, on life support."

Great. Just frikken great. THAT is what he gets for trying to be nice, for once. Last time he was going to do anything like that. His humanity be damned. He didn't mind being a scumbag, really.

"Honestly, I didn't mean to worry you, or anything. I just wanted to make sure you were aware of the seriousness of the matter at hand.

"Luckily," the doctor said hopefully, "I believe we have a makeshift solution to your problem."

He pointed to the energetic girl that had been temporary forgotten and quiet(Thank God, Accelerator thought). "What I believe we can do is harness the ability of the MISAKA network, which this young girl is, essentially, the control center of. She's quite willing, especially since you saved her. If it weren't for you, all the MISAKA's would be going berserk now, due to the virus.

"No matter what you think of the other Sisters, you can be sure that the remaining 10,000 will surely make up in mental ability what you have lost. Their control over electricity will make things even easier, and you could probably connect your brain directly to the network.

"If you want any hope of recovering, this is the most quick and viable solution."

Accelerator was left speechless. He regained some face by closing his open mouth, and began to stare down, at his bed.

Taking a while to process this information(Because Accelerator had purposely under clocked his brain, the moment was much longer than it should have been. The awkward silence sat for over a minute), he finally gave his response.

"So...I can't use my powers again, or I'll end up with a brain of mush and wind up a vegetable for the rest of eternity," Accelerator crossed his arms and squinted, a look of agitation on his face, "and to prevent that, I'm going to have to hook up my brain to that thing, over there?"

Angrily, he swung his arm in the direction of the electric brat, pointing while his eye began to twitch.

The young clone, who was sitting in the chair against the wall, swinging her legs, tilted her head as he gestured towards her, giggled and gave a small little wave.

With one last swing of her legs forward, she leaped up off the chair and took a haughty pose in front of him, her hands upon her hips, chest puffed out, grinning arrogantly.

"This MISAKA here knows every single thing that happens ever to aaaaaaaall of the Sisters around the world," she proclaimed, swinging her right arm, outstretched and in front of her, as if indicating the greatness of area in her influence and control.

"They're not always thinking all the time, you know. We could pool up all the idle processing ability of the Sisters on the network, and then you wouldn't be so stupid anymore! 'proposes MISAKA, as MISAKA looks with hope in her eyes."

Indeed, the child was pleading now, and her eyes sparkled with a great brilliance, even as she insulted him. If her shining eyes and humongous smile didn't look so sincere, Accelerator would have punched her in the face.

The doctor spoke up."She's right, you know. And you're going to need her help, whether you like it or not," the doctor flipped through the pages of his clipboard, staring intensely at one particular page for a few seconds, "because, honestly, it's amazing you're even able to function at all, although you could probably regain the same amount if not more of your original processing capacity by connecting to the MISAKA network."

Finally placing the clipboard by his side, he put on a light smile. "But don't worry about it, okay? We'll give you a while to think about it. Just...Don't think too hard about it."

The doctor left, with the small girl following excitedly behind him.

Accelerator heard the click of the door as it closed, verification that he was left alone with his thoughts, and his vain attempts at trying to retain a lack thereof.