Toaru Kagaku no Railgun SS2: Ability Demonstration Trip

Synopsis
July 1st Mikoto is in a large shopping centre in Russia. The purpose of this trip is an ability demonstration organized by AC and one of there partner organizations in Russia. The reason why AC agreed to this demonstration is to show others that AC has no intention of hiding anything to the partners. For that, Mikoto was sent alone without any guards or escorts from AC. In fact, it was all planned that Mikoto's power demonstration event will not give any more useful data for the researchers in Russia.

In the next few days, the demonstration event is going to take place in the shopping center that Mikoto is currently in. It is currently the world's largest shopping centre complex, with hotels, duty free shop, airports and other tourism facilities built around it. It's so large and the shops are so diverse that it can be considered as a theme park. But in reality, the shopping centre complex is a large experiment for various kinds of consumer and economic behaviour. Aside from being the World's largest shopping centre, the complex also used a new system called the Semi-Open AR (Augmented Reality). It's a type of AR system that allows anyone to access information anywhere on walls, the ceiling, and the floor without the use of any personal devices. Aside from viewing information, the system is also used to display advertisements tailored for each user.

When she arrived in the shopping centre, she was greeted by a woman called Setari S. Skinika, who claims to be a "security guard". The "security guards" in that shopping centre are very close to the Anti-Skill in terms of the nature of their jobs. Setari will be her guide for the next few days, and roughly briefed her on the schedule before escorting her to the hotel.

Setari also told Mikoto about an urban legend of the shopping centre, one that Saten also knows about in AC. The urban legend is about "a very valuable orange", and the value of that orange increases over time. The story is that a tourist saw something called "a very valuable orange" in a souvenir shop while overseas, then the tourist bought it as a lucky charm and brought it back to his own country. After getting home, the tourist saw that the orange was slightly shaking, so he mailed the shop that he bought it from. He then got a reply saying that the orange is infested with over a hundred eggs of a species of ants called Red Long-Legged Army, which is very valuable. After reading the mail, the orange exploded.

Mikoto was told by Setari that she should not leave the hotel until the next day, which will be the rehersal for the demonstration. This is because there may be people wanting to steal her DNA map or stop the demonstration, which will be bad for both AC and the partner organization. Inside the hotel room, Mikoto researched a bit about the details of the demonstration, then she decided to leave the hotel room. However, there were people watching the door to make sure that she doesn't leave, so she went out from the window. Her room is on the 20th floor, but with her powers this isn't an issue.

After she escaped from the room, she went back to the shopping centre. While walking around, she noticed a section which is filled with small and insignificant stores, unlike other parts of the complex. Among those stores, the one that caught her attention was a snack and souvenir store called the Nihon Daruma, and the name was in Japanese. The store was filled with occult stuff such as old lambskin documents, small animal heads, and insects in jars filled with an unknown liquid. The person behind the counter was Lessar. After having a small chat, Mikoto left the store. As she left, Lessar told her to be aware of oranges.

As she was about to leave the complex and go back to the hotel, the saw an orange on the floor at the entrance. She immediately thought of the urban legend, but no one else seemed to care about it. Using the semi-open AR system, she researched a bit about the Red Long-Legged Army Ants. That species of ants ia carnivorous, and the colonies hide inside fruits in order to lure prey during times of food shortage. There are also cases of those ants plaguing villages and killing people.

When she finished looking up the info, the orange was gone. Some kids were kicking it around like a ball. Mikoto found those kids kicking the orange around outside, and she noticed that the orange was slightly shaking. She found a metal bucket around, then used her powers to launch the bucket and cover the orange with it. After hearing the orange explode under the bucket, the shocked it around 20 times, then confirmed that the ants are all dead.

After this, Mikoto was brought to an interrogation room by another one of the "security guards" called Enirya G. Argonuskaya, also a woman. There, Enirya told Mikoto that the urban legend was originally about a cactus instead of an orange. It only became an orange once it was spread to AC. Therefore the locals would not use an orange even if they were to make the urban legend a reality. Because of that, and the fact that the incident happened right when Mikoto came to Russia, Enirya suspected that it's actually Mikoto who created the exploding orange incident. Then Enrya left the room and left Mikoto alone. Mikoto was not afraid that anything would happen to her, simply because she really didn't do it and AC would not let Russia do anything to her. When she reached into her pocket to get a phone, she found a piece of orange peel and she didn't know how it got there. On the orange peel, there was a label with a QR code. She wanted to read the QR code with her cell phone, but the phone didn't recognize it. Then she used the semi-open AR system to scan it. After reaching the site in the QR code, she saw that the orange actually came in a box of 20. The rest of the oranges are actually still in the shopping centre somewhere, and someone is planning to do something with them. She called for Enirya, but got no response, so she escaped from the room again using her powers.

She went back to the mall and threw security off her trail using her powers and then searched for a server to create new identities for herself. She wound up in a casino where she met up with Lessar once again, dressed in a bunny suit and helped her with poker in orderto get close enough to the server. The deal got suspicious because they were manipulating people using psycology and were driving them off, but Mikoto managed to change her ID in time and created a situation to escape easily.

She then went back to Lessar's shop and met Lancis, who gave her a postcard with nformaation leading her learning about Project EIC, which uses rumors to manpulate sales. She confronted Setari about it in her room, scaring her before learning that she didn't know too much despite leading Project EIC, before leaving to locate Lessar again.

Mikoto was nearly caught by three security agents on a patrol when Lancis appeared and pulled her along. Mikoto guessed she and Lessar were something like spies, as she noted various exits, went along with the flow of the crowd, and kept the same pace, until they entered the swimming pool, where the patrol couldn't enter fully armed. They changed into swimming suits in an narrow alley, and entered the pool. After a quick swim, they exited and split up, with Mikoto arriving in time to see Lessar being spanked by Bayloupe for getting her too deeply involved.

While they were explaining, a snowplow crashed into the shop and detonated. All the girls escaped, with Lessar and Mikoto running from another vehicle armed with machine guns. Security arrived to stop the vehicle and Lessar suggested leaving them, but Mikoto saved them from the guns with her Railgun. The chase continued with Enirya and Mikoto being cornered when Lessar saved them using her spear.

Mikoto found the location where the ants were being bred and found all the equipment smashed and the ants dead, with no clue on what to do next. While escaping she considered the possiblilty of New Light being repsonsible but dismissed it. Enirya found the location and enough blood to assume someone was murdered and stubbornly refused to clear Mikoto of her charges since there wasn't enough evidence to say she wasn't involved anymore.

Mikoto woke up after passing out for five hours and found Lessar staring at her and gave her food before taking her to their northern store. She explained tried explaining how thier magic works but gave up after the first try and explained how Project EIC was being used to alter people's minds. Mikoto believes they are trying to make espers, while Lessar believes that they are converting people's life force into magical power like magicians, but in the end, the person responsible for the ants was killed by the ones behind Project EIC. There was a chance they were planning to set up Academy City or attack it after using rumours started in the shopping mall, by destoying Academy City, the institutions outside of it would become the new leaders in technology and profit, at the cost of the Psychic development progam disappearing.

Lessar told Mikoto of the "Necklace of Death" rumor and she told Kuroko to investigate, while Saten found out on her own. Kuroko found out it involved using electromagnetic waves and had to take care of them while fending off their attacks. After the issue was resolved, Enirya figured that the Higher ups were involved.

Saten contacted Uiharu about a new rumor involving a nuclear bomb this time. The rumor spread around through the world and the rumor in the shopping mall changed stating that Mikoto had brought the nuclear bomb into the mall. A man tried to shoot her but she tricked him using the AR and tried to knock him out, but with his adrenline, he stayed concsious and drew attention to them. When someone with an axe approached, she caved in the floor and escaped with Lessar.

Unfortunately, people started panicking and were already robbing the nearby gun store. When they spoke in Japanese, everyone turned their guns on them. They hid and Mikoto slightly panicked at the scale that the damage could spread. Lessar told her that she trying to stop them was just to satisfy her herself, but left through a duct to stop the EIC at mikoto's urging, not wanting her to get involved and they parted for the moment.

Enirya's unit was being pinned down due to the number of rioters and their equipment. Once they learn where Mikoto was, they decided that she could be used to stop the rioting, since if they killed her they wouldn't stop afterwards due to the flow, they wanted to secure her. The rioters themselves were getting more desperate and she had to find iron sand to manipulate. Once the target of the violence changed to target Lessar, she got serious.

Lessar was cornered into a room where she found a magic sulfur bomb that would cause incurable pain to everyone caught in it. Bayloupe ordered her to retreat since this wasn't their problem, but she disagreed and began disarming the bomb before the rioters could get inside. When they were about to break through Enirya held them off until a remote control snowplow broke through and they were swallowed. Mikoto arrived and railgunned the room clear and stopped holding back as much. When Enirya woke up, they were gone to invsetigate.

Lessar and Mikoto made it to the source and she hacked it to find out that they were planning to use a Solntse hydrogen bomb or in a worse case scenario a nuke. Lessar, on the other hand, found nine headless bodies that belonged to the higher ups, done by Caliche I Niknosh, a member of the Russian Orthodox Church.

Lessar left to steal spices from a grocery store and tracked her while being attacked by Ice Knives. She stopped her outside using an Explosive Wind spell but was attacked by several other men. She fought back and triumphed, but they revealed that somone else was involved on the plan. After that she used a spiritual item to try and crush her.

In academy city, they were taking steps to get rid of the bomb when the began countering the planes dropping the bomb. In Russia, Floris just saved Lessar before she had her let go to analyze the Wheel Snake item. When she was about to be killed, Mikoto attacked it, giving her time to finish analyzing it. Mikoto explained that the three planes were a decoy and that they actually planned to use a UAV to detonate the orignal one. They quickly conclude that some else is moving the plan along still using the EIC.