Forewords
Okay, this year's New Year Special will be a bit different.
How different? It will be a completely standalone story, with no ties to the canons of any one of my other stories.
And I seem to have missed the third anniversary of Fantasy Blitzkrieg. Not a big matter, since I put it on a permanent hiatus on Halloween Day.
A Puppeteer's Not-So-Lonely Christmas
Time: 2030 Hour; 24th of December, 2016.
Location: Alice's House; Forest Of Magic, Gensokyo.
Alice Margatroid is proud of all the efforts she had put into preparing for a Christmas party at her house.
Christmas decors are hung all over the house. A small Christmas tree, fully decorated, is set up at a corner of her living room. Christmas dinner is prepared and ready for serving once the guests arrive... The Seven-Colored Puppeteer hoped to have a happy moment of counting down to Christmas day with her friends (and surrogate family from Makai).
But there is just one problem, though...
No one has arrived yet.
All the preparations were done half an hour ago, and Alice is anxiously waiting for someone to come. But nobody has come even though she had her dolls send out invitations to everyone she knows (she even specified the time and had a map drawn out in the invitation slips just in case).
"What could everyone be doing...?" The Seven-Colored Puppeteer wondered.
Alice waited several more minutes for someone to come. When she thought someone knocked on the door and went to answer it, it turned out to just be two fairies having a fistfight with each other and they just happened to bump into the door in the process. These two fairies left the scene shortly afterwards, with their fistfight continuing as they go.
Disappointed, Alice let out a sigh. "I think I should check on everyone...see what could be keeping them busy." She told herself.
With that, the Seven-Colored Puppeteer walked out of her house, with Shanghai and Hourai hovering behind her. With no further adieu, she took off into the air, and flew around Gensokyo, looking for everyone.
...
Location: Kirisame Magic Shop.
The first place Alice went to check on is the house of her friend and fellow magician, Marisa.
The black-white magician isn't home. But as with the usual times, the front yard of her house is full of assorted junk that fell in from the Outside World, ranging from simple drinking cans to what looked like the weathered remains of a motorbike frame.
"Gone to do some things. Be back soon. Marisa K." A sign is placed in front of the door with this message written on it. Nothing is unusual about the sign, other than the fact that it is written in English (which as far as Alice remembers, is not Marisa's first language). The "do some things" in the sign appears to have been scribbled in at the last second, as the font is thicker and messier compared to the rest of the sentence.
"Oh, Marisa..." Alice face-palmed. "Have you gone to rob from Patchouli again?"
...
Location: Scarlet Devil Mansion; Misty Lake.
The next place Alice went to is the Scarlet Devil Mansion. She simply assumed that Marisa must be in the Voile - the mansion's library - doing her usual business of stealing books (and getting into fights with Koakuma, Patchouli and Sakuya because of that). Or maybe Marisa just happened to run into Flandre Scarlet, and is trying her best to survive the little vampire's "playtime".
But if that were the case, then there should be attack damage on at least one side of the Mansion. Yet the Mansion seems perfectly unscathed. Even more unusual is that the Chinese gatekeeper is not at her position, and the lack of battle damage in the vicinity of the main gate eliminated the theory of her being launched into another location by a powerful attack.
Because the main gate is locked, and there's nobody present to ask for permission to enter (plus the fact she considers just flying over the gate to be as rude as blasting it down), Alice sighed before turning herself around. "Not here either. Where did everyone in the mansion go to?"
...
And so Alice went all over Gensokyo, looking for Marisa and everyone else.
She went to the Hakurei Shrine. It was vacant, even Reimu and Suika were nowhere to be seen.
She went to Youkai Mountain. Nitori and her Kappa mob are busy tinkering with something; Aya said she hasn't seen Marisa since the beginning of the day; Kanako and Suwako said the same, also citing that Sanae hasn't come back since breakfast.
She went to the Human Village. Hieda No Akyuu has not left her manor for the entire day; The little bookworm at Suzunaan also hasn't left within the day, and received no visit from Marisa nor Reimu.
Finally, she returned to the Forest Of Magic and dropped by Kourindou. Alice had hoped that she might get some answers from Rinnosuke. But alas, the half-Youkai shopkeeper's answer to that question is to shake his head.
...
Time: 2130 Hour.
Location: Alice's House; Forest Of Magic.
One hour later into her search, Alice returned home empty-handed.
She sighed as she landed in front of her house.
"Where is everyone?" Alice asked herself. "Do I have to spend this year's Christmas all by myself?"
Resisting the urge to cry, Alice slowly walked into her house. Dismissing Shanghai, the puppeteer then sat herself at the dining table.
The Christmas dinner had all gone cold by now, but that doesn't matter to Alice anymore, because it appears that there won't be anyone but herself at the dining table tonight. In addition, Alice has also lost her appetite.
"It's alright..." Alice told herself, with a bit of sadness in her tone. "Ever since I moved from Makai to Gensokyo, it has been like this every year..."
The puppeteer's train of thought was then interrupted by knockings on the door.
Believing the knockings to be the result of a fistfight between two fairies, Alice ignored it and stayed at the dining table. Even as the knockings continued, Alice did not get up to answer it.
"Okay, something's not right..." A familiar voice said from outside the door. "Alice usually never took longer than this, ze..."
That voice and the verbal tic following it immediately caught Alice's attention, jolting her up from her seat at the dining table.
"Alright then..." The voice said, followed by the sound of a Spell Card being prepared for casting. "Master..."
That certainly spooked Alice to the point of warranting immediate action. "Wait, wait, WAIT!" She immediately rushed to answer the door before whoever's behind it blasts it down with her signature Spell Card. "Marisa, is that you?" Alice asked as she opens the door.
Indeed, it was Marisa Kirisame the Ordinary Magician behind the door. Accompanying her are: Reimu (with a bandage over her left eye), Sakuya (carrying a very fancy cake with her), and Sanae (the only one present who's actually dressed for Christmas).
Before Alice could ask what is going on, Marisa put her hand forward and stopped the puppeteer. "I know what you're thinking, Alice." She said. "Sorry for being late. An Incident involving fairies and Makai happened at the last minute. It was so serious, we could not simply ignore it."
"It was also extremely unpleasant too. Thus explaining this..." Reimu added, pointing a finger at her bandaged left eye.
"By the time we solved the Incident, we realized we were late for your party by two whole hours." Sanae added apologetically.
"So we asked Sakuya a favor..." Marisa added again, this time pointing at the cake carried by Sakuya. "...And she agreed to help."
"I went to help solve the Incident too, so I believe we all owe you for being late to the party." Sakuya said.
Alice stood there, saying not a single word for a moment.
Then she hugged Marisa, crying tears of joy at the same time.
Everyone said nothing, allowing the heartwarming moment to unfold itself.
Marisa gently pats Alice on her head. "Let's celebrate together as friends..."
...
Later that night...
"And so, the Hell Fairy used her torch to make Reimu go nuts and attack everyone in Makai randomly..." Marisa described the events of the Incident she just came back from, over the dining table at Alice's house. The Christmas dinner have all gone cold and inedible at this point, but good thing Sakuya had that fancy cake baked for the occasion.
"Took being hit in the eye by a fireball to finally snap me out of it..." Reimu continued. The red-white shrine maiden took several sips from a wine glass that, as expected, is filled with wine. "Worst Incident ever..." Reimu didn't like the taste of wine, but at this point she just wanted something to drink.
"And that fireball came from a Makai citizen who looked like Marisa too." Sanae added. The green-haired shrine maiden simply sat at the dining table, chiming in with the conversation. "I thought demons were pure evil beings, but these girls are the complete opposite. I was surprised!"
Sakuya said nothing. The maid simply listened, as well as enjoying the moment.
"That's when Sakuya literally popped out right in front of that Hell Fairy, and quite simply, plucked that torch out of her hand." Marisa resumed describing. "From that point, its pretty much over for her. Since without her torch, that Hell Fairy is just that, a fairy." The witch snapped her fingers. "Then, Alice's mom and her maid showed up, and the rest is quite simply several pieces of one Hell Fairy."
That caught Alice's attention. "Mother... helped solve the Incident?"
"An act of self-defense, the Demon Goddess said." Reimu threw in, then chugs down the rest of the wine in her wine glass. "It was Makai that was threatened, after all..."
The conversation is interrupted by sudden door knocks.
"I'll go fetch that, ze." Marisa said as she stood up from the dining table and went for the door.
Opening the door, she finds several people she wasn't expecting to see again. The witch stood there for a while, unable to come up with a course of action.
"Marisa, who is, or are, at the door?" Alice wondered as she asked Marisa.
Marisa slowly turned toward Alice and said, "Uh... You might want to brace yourself..."
"MERRY CHRISTMAS, ALICE!" The crowd outside loudly announced as they walked in, bumping Marisa aside in the process. The crowd consisted of the Makai citizens: Sara, Louise, Yuki, Mai, and the Demon Goddess - Shinki herself.
Now it is Alice's turn to be unable to come up with a response. The puppeteer sat there, frozen like a statue.
"Talk about a surprise..." Reimu deadpanned at the arrival of the Makai group.
"I thought demons don't celebrate Christmas?" Sanae voiced her confusion at what is happening.
"Not the demons of Makai, green-hair." Mai gave a direct answer to Sanae.
Shinki notices how Alice just froze there on her side of the dining table. "What's wrong, Alice? Too happy to see your family?"
Alice froze there for a bit more before she finally answered, weeping more tears of joy...
"Surrogate family. But yes, I'm happy..."
Afterwords
Heartwarming scenes? In a Lt Colonel Summers fanfic? No, you're not reading it wrongly, I am trying my best to make this one-shot as heartwarming as possible.
It was New Year's Eve, after all. What's more appropriate than trying out something new?
Speaking of new, I have decided to give original fictions a go on FictionPress, and I will begin on the 1st of January. Do check them out if you're interested!
That reminds me, I've got to get back to updating Metal Slug: Mercenaries and Gensokyo Untold...
You may have noticed that Meiling's absence at the SDM front gate is not explained within the story itself. I meant for that as a sort of Mythology Gag to the now-dead Fantasy Blitzkrieg, which has Meiling being launched into the sky and not coming back down for a very long time as a Running Gag.
Since this is the very last thing I wrote in the year 2016, I'll just end it here and call it a day... The last day of the year...
Merry (late) Christmas! Wish you a happy year 2017!
That is all. "See you next year!"