Marisa was bored.
This was saying something, considering Gensokyo was nearly always wrapped up in some incident or another, be it a crazy ghost gathering spring for a giant demon cherry tree, a hell raven armed with the power of the Yatagarasu trying to take over the world, or a drunken oni throwing parties everywhere.
This, however, was one of those rare calm periods. Summer was drawing to a close, and after that kooky goddess, Tenshi or something, had been defeated, everyone seemed too worn out to cause any trouble. In addition to this sudden lazy spell, Marisa's continual breaking into the Scarlet Devil Mansion had finally become enough of an annoyance to its residents, and Nitori had been called in to upgrade the mansion's defenses. Marisa was lucky to make it past the gates these days.
So now Marisa was up the creek without a paddle, as the saying went. She'd been deprived of her 2 favorite pastimes for a month now, and was at a loss as to what to do instead. She'd tried burying herself in research, like Patchy did, but there are only so many variations on a Master Spark. She'd tried turning to arts and crafts, like Alice and her creepy dolls, but she'd found out the hard way that she had absolutely zero talent in that department. She'd even tried a religious stint at the Hakurei Shrine, but that had been nearly as bad as sitting around and doing nothing, which it pretty much was. On the plus side, she'd finally found out how Reimu's armpit-sleeve-thingies stayed on, a question she'd been dying to know the answer to since pretty much the beginning of their friendship.
Marisa sighed gloomily (she seemed to be doing a lot of that lately), and laid back on her broomstick, a fairly impressive feat seeing how it was currently suspended 200 feet in the air. She suddenly sat upright, groaning in frustration.
"Arrrgh! Why is thinking of something to do so hard, ze! I can't go visit Patchy-kun, Reimu-kun wants nothing to do with me after that incident with the teacups, and Alice-"
She paused. "Hang on…" A slow grin spread over her face. "That's it, ze!" she shouted jubilantly, nearly falling off her broom. "I'll go see Alice-kun! She's always got something interesting going on, ze!"
With this heartening thought, she hunched over on her broom, holding onto her hat with one hand, and whooped delightedly as it zoomed off, heading towards a certain doll-obsessed youkai's house.
Alice, meanwhile, was deep in concentration.
All her research had led up to this moment. All those years of painstaking labor, all those countless sleepless nights, they were all preludes to today.
Today, she was finally going to make a doll with free will.
She'd been working as usual, trying to find some clue as to how to imbue something with a soul, when she'd literally stumbled on the answer, tripping over a book she'd accidentally knocked off a shelf.
It had happened to be a book on voodoo magic. She'd never read it before, having never really given voodoo that much stock. In her opinion, it was all just a load of mumbo jumbo, not like real magic at all. But, desperate times called for desperate measures, and Alice was pretty much at the end of her rope. After some internal struggle, she'd finally opened the book, and peeked at the table of contents.
And there it had been, staring back at her like a beacon of light. The spell she'd been looking for, all those years.
A soul transfer spell.
It had been simple enough to set up; a dash of chicken blood, a rather…unorthodox pentagram, and one of her precious dolls. There had been the problem, though: which of her dolls would she test the spell on? Not Shanghai or Hourai; they were too precious to be used in a trial run, in case something went wrong. For all she knew, the spell would take several tries to perfect.
So who then? After some thought, she decided on one of her earlier creations, one she'd created in a fit of whimsy: a magic-using doll. Any resemblance to a certain black-and-white witch was, of course, pure coincidence. Without a doubt. Coincidence.
After getting over a period of intense blushing, she'd finally deemed herself ready to perform the spell.
Back in the present, she took a deep breath, looked once more at the large book in front of her, and began to chant. She'd checked earlier about the whole "transfer" part of the spell, and it seemed as though the spell would use the most complicated soul it could find in the area (excluding that of the caster's), so it would most likely be some sort of animal, nothing major. Just to make sure, though, she'd posted a sign outside her door. That should keep everyone away, right?
Right?
Shaking her head to clear her sudden feeling of uneasiness, she continued on with the spell, unaware of a certain broomstick touching down nearby,
With practiced ease, Marisa pulled up just in time, and landed expertly on the soft grass outside Alice's home. She smirked, allowing herself a small moment of pride at the perfect landing, then began to walk cheerily towards the youkai's home.
She paused, suddenly feeling dizzy. "That was weird, ze…" she muttered to thin air, taking a moment to recover. Then she shrugged. "Ah well! Probably some sort of delayed reaction to that killer loop-the-loop I did-"
She was cut off abruptly as another wave hit her, this one bigger than the first. She stumbled, nearly losing her footing. Her vision began to swim. "What…the hell?" she croaked. She took a few wobbly steps, before collapsing, her legs suddenly stiff and unresponsive. Her vision began to go black as she desperately tried to move something, anything. She began to feel strangely cold.
There was a whooshing sensation, and she was suddenly in the air, inexplicably hovering a few feet off the ground. She looked down, and saw…her body, lying in the grass, her black dress crumpled. She was frightened by how blank and soulless her open eyes looked. Then the whooshing sensation was back, and Marisa lost consciousness altogether.
Oh god, my head… Where am I, ze?
Marisa opened her eyes blearily. The last thing she remembered was coming to visit Alice, then having a freaky near-death experience. The question was, where was she now?
She sat up, and looked at her surroundings. She was in Alice's cottage, that much was evident. Everything seemed bigger somehow, though. Now that she thought about it, she herself still felt kind of...weird. Kind of detached from her body. What the hell happened to me, ze?
Suddenly, she heard jubilant whooping from her right. Startled, she turned, and saw the giant figure of Alice Margatroid-wait, giant? Marisa rubbed her eyes to make sure she wasn't seeing things. Either Alice had grown 6 feet in the last few minutes, or-
Her eyes widened as a terrible thought struck her. Before she could check her theory, however, she was suddenly picked up and hugged fiercely by Alice. Marisa could feel her cheeks flush bright red. Finally released from Alice's death grip, she found herself being held at arm's length, looking at the face of a beaming Alice. She looked proudly at Marisa, who smiled nervously back. She smiled even brighter, if possible. Then, she cleared her throat, obviously trying not to let excitement get the better of her.
"Um, hi! My name's Alice Margatroid, and I'm your new owner!" She looked thoughtful for a moment, then continued. "Um, I know this might be kind of confusing to you, but don't worry! I wouldn't know, but I bet being a doll's super fun!"
Marisa just stared, her worst fears confirmed.
Maybe I should have just had another go at those gates…
Hello, all! Voodoogirl360 here.
So! Here we are at my very first multi-chapter Touhou fanfic! *insert dramatic music here* I was very pleased with the rather glowing review I got from the marvelous Sonanoka21093 for Scarlet Shadows, and decided to go ahead with this idea that's been puttering around in my head for a while. Sorry Hetalia fans, but you might have to wait a teensy bit longer for that promised fic. Have to finish this one first.
This should be a short fic, maybe 5 or 6 chapters, maybe more. Lemme know what you think! Reviews are always appreciated! Voodoogirl360 out!