Silvercross Alpha

Silvercross Alpha (シルバークロース＝アルファ) is an antagonist in Shinyaku Toaru Majutsu no Index Light Novel Volume 01 and a member of Freshmen, an organization belonging to the dark side of Academy City.

Appearance
Originally Silvercross apparently had a graceful looking face, but had lost it due to an unknown punishment in past via burning. After doing various jobs for Academy City, he eventually regained his former face and has long hair.

Personality
Not much is known what Silvercross was like before his punishment, only after his facial reconstruction did his views on his body become twisted. Silvercross felt no sense of aesthetics towards his own body, because of the disgrace he felt from his face being burned off. This is later proven when Hamazura Shiage saw what a part of his body looked like under the suit.

Silvercross noted that he himself needed to be pretty adaptable in order to properly make the most out of his powered suits; for example in order to fight in a 4-legged suit he needed the mindset of a 4-legged animal, in order to pilot an 8-legged suit he needed to become an 8-legged animal. He has been described as someone who used the right tool for the right job instead of someone who uses the same weapon for every fight; a characteristic which easily explains why he possesses so many powered suits. His habit of switching between numerous powered suits was largely due to the fact that he had arranged his mind so he held no attachment to his outer appearance, his features, or his form.

Background
After doing various "jobs" for Academy City, he eventually becomes affliated with the organization known as "Freshmen." There he is a subordinate of Kuroyoru Umidori and becomes involved in the plan of eliminating the "Graduates:" Accelerator and Shiage.

Freshmen Arc
He is first introduced attacking Hattori Hanzou and Fremea Seivelun in an underground mall with a powered suit called, "Enemy Blaster." The first half of the plan was not actually eliminating Fremea, but draw in the "Graduates."

Silvercross later transfers to a different suit in order to locate Fremea and then eventually kidnaps her when Accelerator shows up. Once again in a different suit, Silvercross attempts to lose his pursuers only caught up by Shiage and taken out.

Despite being near dead, Kuroyoru uses his corpse to automatically pilot the remaining powered suits. This is explained by Silvercross' Cyborg nature, as his enhancements allow him to influence his powered suits operation regardless of how badly his body has been damaged, Hamazura noted that if Silvercross had received medical assistance after his initial defeat he would have survived, however since he was put into the battlefield even into that sorry state he practically had no chances of survival.

Abilities
Silvercross' skill lies in controlling and possessing many customized powered suits. He has arranged his mind so he helds no attachment to his outer appearance, his features, or his form; allowing him to pilot and easily switch between oddly shaped powered suits easily. Due to his body being modified, he can "autopilot" other suits thanks to his brain being like a program and he can achieve so even in dead, he refers to his powered suit reserves as "my collection" and seems to be quite fond of it, even to the point of pointing out when someone uses or touches his collection without his permission.

Silvercross normally uses an exceedingly small powered suit with rounded armadillo-like armor that allows him to interface with and pilot his larger powered suits called Life Armor (ライフアーマー). He can also leap out of his larger powered suits using sensors to control his altitude and enter another of his powered suits while it's moving. The Life Armor can also curl up into a ball like a real armadillo and use an electronic control mechanism to absorb the shock of leaping out of a powered suit moving at more than 500 km/h. The Life Armor enhances Silvercross' mind and body in a similar way as the Dragon Rider enhanced Hamazura's, including granting him martial arts knowledge and allowing him to connect to electronic networks and cameras using a cable.

After Hamazura breaks his arm with a joint lock while he was fighting him using Life Armor, Silvercross tears off his arm to escape the lock. The Life Armor started to crumble away like mud, as some kind of viscous black oil and something like a belt-shaped piece of rubber stretched out and forcibly reattached the arm from the outside. Silver Cross’s “shell” transformed, revealing his human body inside the suit as the “shell” took the form of a a dirty cape. Half of Silver Cross’s body was covered in the artificial muscles that forcibly reinforced him from without, but they looked like a half complete design, as the writhing fibers of the chemical springs were directly visible. The model's name, Emergency, was displayed in red letters on the shell.

As stated by Silvercross, once a powered suit goes past a certain point, it essentially becomes the same as a cyborg. It’s just the difference between being reinforced from without or from within. While using Emergency, destroying Silvercross' body inside the suit is pointless, as it can still be reinforced by the shell from without. The suit can bypass the destruction of bones, muscles, arms, legs, blood vessels or even the damage or stop of his internal organs like his brain and allow him to continue to fight. Emergency can also create seven long and thin but warped arms with pointed ends, capable of piercing through the gaps of Hamazura's Dragon Rider's powered suit to destroy his lungs, heart and the computer of the suit. Despite the suit allowing him to bypass the destruction of his own body, destroying the battery and computer of Emergency will trap Silvercross inside the immobilized suit.

Lists of known powered suits
While it is known that Silvercross has more than 10 powered suits at his disposal (this is after the destruction of Bee Launcher, Highway Cheetah, Life Armor and Emergency) but only a few of them were revealed with a stated name and functions.
 * Enemy Blaster
 * Bee Launcher
 * Highway Cheetah
 * FIVE_Over Modelcase_"RAILGUN"
 * Life Armor
 * Emergency
 * A bipedal powered suit wielding a shield larger than its main body on its right hand. The shield is extremely huge and thick, to the point it looks like even the powered suit can't lift it. There are wheels underneath the shield to allow it to move, and there is a hole in the middle of the shield with a machine gun's cannon barrel the size of a human arm.