magnetically slows descent

Mikoto changed her focus and looked down toward the ground. She didn’t even have a
thousand meters left until she landed. She then spotted a mass of metal much farther
down than her.
It was an attack helicopter.
She didn’t know if it was from Academy City or Russian, but she could use it.
Mikoto could manipulate magnetism.
She was not going to use it to cling to the attack helicopter. At that height and that speed,
her flesh-and-blood body would be crushed the instant she made contact. She had to
only use a bit of the magnetism she could so she didn’t completely cling to it.
Her body shot past the attack helicopter.
She didn’t completely cling to it, but there was a clear force lifting Mikoto’s body toward
the attack helicopter. That force acted as a cushion to softly lower her downward speed.
As Mikoto headed down toward the white snowy plains, she strengthened that force bit
by bit in a carefully regulated manner so as not to crush her body from the shock of
deceleration but to still prevent herself from being killed upon landing.
If someone had been watching from nearby, it may have looked like she was lowering
herself down on an invisible rope.
Mikoto planted her feet atop the snow and completely cut off the magnetic force.
“Now then...”
She was in the middle of a battlefield. Here and there on that plain with almost no
manmade objects she could see tanks and other armored vehicles from both Academy
City and the Russian army. It might have been obvious, but the Russian weapons were
the ones being destroyed.
Mikoto smelled the unpleasant odor of fuel being burned and looked above her.
Even using her powerful magnetism, jumping up three thousand meters into the air was
impossible.

- Toaru Majutsu no Index Volume 21, Between the Lines 4