東方要塞 ~ The Western Impact
Touhou Yousai ~ The Western Impact
Touhou Project / Team Fortress 2 crossover fanfiction by FinnOtaku
I don't own the games that are being used as the base of this work of fiction. Touhou Project is owned by Team Shanghai Alice and Team Fortress 2 is owned by Valve.
Chapter 2: Morning of the Western Impact
Gensokyo, the sealed world of magic and fantasy. The Land of Illusions where the humans and monsters alike live in harmony within it's borders.
Many incidents have taken place in this world - no doubt more yet to come - and some of them were caused by former residents of the outside world. No one really knows how it's done, but from time to time people, artifacts and even mansions have found their way in this secluded world. Some say it's caused by the Gap Youkai, some say they've been spirited away, but nevertheless, none ever seemed to have witnessed the event, when one crosses over the border to this world. People have only imagined what such an event would look like in their minds.
That was, until this one particular morning. The one that would be remembered as the Morning of the Western Impact.
"Ow! What on earth was that?" Engineer wailed as he had finally managed to get back on his knees.
He remembered that he and the Spy were exchanging blows, both being surprisingly equal in that, when all of a sudden an impact had come out of thin air, sending him flying across the bridge and hitting the wall in one of the corridors leading to the point. This made Engineer black out for a moment, but it seems like the Spy hadn't taken the chance to finish him off, seeing that he found himself from the same corridor he had passed out.
As he made it back to the bridge, the Spy was nowhere to be seen.
Could've he ran away, Engineer thought, after all that bravado...
Engineer tried to figure out what had happened, when he noticed the yellow-orange particles falling down from the sunny sky.
"Teleportation?" Engineer said out loud as he recognized the particles.
He had once been researching the cause of these particles, and had come to the conclusion that they were a side effect of splitting a subject into atoms in point A and reassembling them back together in point B, gathering atomic waste on the way. But the thing that had grabbed his attention was the amount enough to make it look like a yellow-orange snowfall. And the thing was, this much atomic waste would've been caused by a teleportation of a subject with a mass approximately equal to that of a...
Wait, sunny?
The Engineer finally realized the contradiction, as he noticed the prevailing state of weather. Sunny? In the Thunder Mountains? Evidently, the discovery made Engineer notice the change of scenery as well. The scenery of the distant mountains and the nearby hills had been replaced by treetops, giving him an expression of an overview of a forest. And as he was observing his surroundings, he noticed that the facility looked like it had been roughly cut from the mountain, and pasted as roughly on it's current location.
Though reluctant to admit it, he had only one plausible explanation: the facility had somehow ended up to be a subject in a large-scale teleportation, sending the facility - along with him, at least - to a location he's yet to identify. But from the looks of it, the facility's current location was nowhere near Badlands.
As he began wonder what and who could've caused such a large-scale teleportation, he remembered that he had left the teleporters on their own in his room. Not that he assumed them to have something to do with this, because that's not how they've been designed. He decided to go back to his room and check them out, still keeping an eye out in case of the Spy.
Marisa had spent her whole morning in the depths of Forest of Magic hunting mushrooms, ending up with two full bags worth of delicacies. Satisfied with her haul, she finally decided to head back home, with Alice carrying the other bag.
"Man, I'll be so feasting tonight!" Marisa bragged cheerfully as she walked along a faint road, Alice following the black-white witch with two of her dolls floating beside her. "Maybe I'll make a soup, I haven't done one in a really long time."
"Marisa, why do I have to carry one of your bags?" Alice asked with an annoyed tone as this was not what she had in mind, when Marisa asked her to "take a walk with her in a forest".
Apparently Marisa found that question a bit odd as she gave a confused look on Alice.
"What do you mean 'why'?" she replied, "You think I could carry both of these bags myself? Are you stupid?"
The last three words gave Alice an urge to bomb Marisa with one of her dolls, but she had to hold herself back as she didn't want her friend to be judged by Shikieiki just yet. This was one of those moments she wished that Marisa would've been something much more durable than a human being, and - moreover - stopped acting like she could take on the world whenever she liked. Especially with that kind of a bag in her shoulders.
"Gee, who knows..." Alice stated sarcastically, Marisa being seemingly oblivious to read between the lines.
"By the way, Marisa", Alice said suddenly with bit of a worried voice, making Marisa turn attention to her, "how come you're so relaxed? One of those things just now didn't really crash that far from here. Aren't you worried?"
Some of the particles were still falling, when Alice brought this up. They had both witnessed the red light show that had taken place a few moments earlier, and both had prepared their weapons to encounter anything that might have followed the crash in the forest. But since nothing out of ordinary had popped up, Marisa had leisurely proceeded with her hunt.
"Well, it's not that I'm not worried or anything", Marisa claimed, "I just thought that if the one responsible had been as flashy as that light show, we would've seen a herd of gargoyles and whatnot by now."
Or maybe you're just being too naive, Alice thought. And why gargoyles?
As they both kept arguing whether they should be more cautious, they failed to notice that something had cut off their designated road. And it took them to get about three feet away from it to finally notice the sight before them. Or rather, above them, which made Alice to take a few quick steps back and arm her dolls, out of surprise.
The thing that had surprised her was a huge log, hanging by a rope. And that was as much as she managed acknowledge, as she realized that making quick movements with a huge bag of mushrooms might've not been the best idea. The extra weight of the bag made her lost her balance, ending up falling down on her back.
Marisa, who had also taken a few steps back and managed to maintain her balance, seemed to find the puppeteer's little incident amusing.
"Pfft... She fell on her ass", Marisa snickered, making Alice blush a little.
"Sh... Shut up!" Alice yelled with an embarrassed voice, with her embarrassment being further manifested by a sudden wobbly movement of her dolls. Even though one might forget, she is the one controlling them, and situations like these could make her lost her focus, causing her dolls to stagger for a brief time.
"What if someone had tried to drop that thing on us?"
"But no one did, ze?" Marisa said with a carefree tone, as she had went ahead and began to poke the log with her broom.
As it was true that nothing had really happened, Alice decided to leave the case be as she got back up to examine what she could see beyond the log.
The log was hanging from a wooden building, resembling what Alice could describe as a barn, in the case of appearance. To the right of the building, she could see a complex of other buildings, with the nearest of them having a giant "RED" written on it. To the left of the barn building, she could see a separate building, that in turn had "BLU Industries" written on it. As she didn't really understand the meaning behind these labels, other than that the latter might've been missing an E, she turned her attention to a detail she found to be a bit more peculiar. She wasn't sure if it was just her, but the edge where this... place met with the ground seemed a little off. To her, it looked like as if someone had roughly cut it from the place where it belonged, and pasted it as roughly on it's current...
A mixed feeling of shame and realization finally hit through Alice's body. The shame for taking this long time to realize the obvious, and the realization... well, for a rather obvious reason.
"Marisa", Alice said, "could this be..."
"Yeah, most probably", Marisa said as she had apparently came to the same conclusion. The place they were gazing upon must've been the thing that had crashed in the forest during the earlier spectacle. "Well then, shall we?"
The way Marisa said the last part made Alice flinch and turn her attention to the witch.
"I beg your pardon?" Alice asked, even though she had a pretty good idea on what kind of thoughts were running through the black-white witch's mind at the moment.
A huge grin spread on Marisa's face.
"A treasure hunt, Alice! Treasure hunt!" Marisa exclaimed with excitement, "That place is bound to be filled with stuff from the outside world!"
I knew it, Alice thought as she went to stand between Marisa and the mysterious facility.
"Marisa, let's just go back home with these mushrooms, okay?" Alice said slowly, trying to prevent the upcoming chain of events, "Let's just wait until someone like Reimu check the place out and..."
The smile went even wider on Marisa's face.
Oh my god, Alice thought as she realized her horrible choice of words. Marisa was almost synonymous to "someone like Reimu" when it came to these kind of things. But Alice didn't want to give up just yet.
"Y... You know, there could be vicious beasts in there, just waiting to attack anyone who stumbles upon their territor..."
Marisa took out her Hakkero, her eagerness now practically shining on her face.
Oh, who am I kidding...
"After you", Alice muttered as if she had been defeated in a Danmaku battle, making way for Marisa.
"Yay!" Marisa bursted, as they both floated their way beside the barn building and began to investigate the place.
"What in Sam Hill happened here?" Engineer let out as he had got back to his room.
He was pretty certain that he hadn't left his room with such a mess when he had went to confront the Spy. One of the teleporters had somehow ended up crashing on one of the room's panels, and the only thing left from the other one was the base. As he was furiously looking around, trying to figure out what had happened, the first scenario he had to reject was that it would've been the work of the Spy, because of the lack of the sappers. The second scenario he had to reject was that it would've been caused by the teleportation, because his pile of metal would've surely fallen over as well.
After his moment of rage, he finally took notice of the broken window, the one that was facing towards the tower. This almost made him to go on another rage, but he managed compose himself as he sat on his chair.
After he had finally managed to calm down, he began to plan how to handle the situation. First off, he decided to go and pick up the remnants of his sentry, checking whether the teleporter exit would be somewhere along the way. As he didn't know when would be the next time for the BLU to strike, he felt that repairing his gear should come first for putting up the defenses. Then, he'd check around the facility, gather his team and plan the next move with them.
Having the main parts of his plan figured out, he got up and began to make his way to the sentry spot, still keeping an eye out in case of the Spy.
"Man, how did it end up like this?" Engineer mumbled, recalling how well things had gone for him just earlier.
Looks like everything's calm out here, Ran thought as she was flying over the Human Village.
The last of the particles had finally vanished from the morning sky. Some of the people seemed to be nervous of what had happened earlier, but from the looks of it, the feeling of uncertainty was the worst that had hit the village after the spectacle.
Ran had reached the outskirts of the village, next stop being the Hakurei Shrine, when she noticed something peculiar by the river that streamed near the village.
"What on earth is that?" Ran said out loud as she had set her eyes on a building that she didn't recall seeing the last time she visited the shrine. And that was the day before yesterday. "This must be one of the offsprings of that light show..."
Ran ceased her flight to examine the building. The structure that had appeared by the river seemed to be a wooden warehouse of some kind, painted in red and having "Happy Farmers" written on the front of the structure. The warehouse was accompanied by a bridge that had conveniently settled over the flowing river. But it seemed to be meant for a longer crossing, since the bridge had twisted on the opposing shore as it's structures had reached a bit beyond the riverbank.
Even though the warehouse seemed to be of no harm, something about it rubbed Ran the wrong way. It was one of those moments that she knew there was something off, but just couldn't put her finger on it. Maybe it was the copy-paste impression...
Guess we have to start our investigation here, Ran thought as she checked the relatively short distance between the village and the warehouse. If that spectacle brought something malicious from the outside world, we have to ensure the security of the villagers first.
Ran left the site and kept going towards the Hakurei Shrine, just a few moments before a large, blue shirted man emerged from the building, with a confused look on his face and a minigun on his shoulders.
"Look Alice, it's another one of those mystery lockers!" Marisa stated as the magicians had seemingly reached a new area within the mystery complex, a one with a spiraling tower.
The two of them had an argument on how they should've investigated the place, and with no better idea, they had decided to go with Marisa's idea of following the railroad tracks. And even for her surprise, they actually made some progress, as the tracks seemed to cover most of the facility's areas.
"Look, look, it's opening and closing on it's own!" Marisa said, moving back and forth in front of the locker. The puppeteer was glancing over the tower and it's surroundings through two large windows.
"You know, after seeing that for a couple of times, it isn't really that impressive", Alice noted in a dull voice, making Marisa stop her play and give her a sour face.
"Alice, you really should try and find your inner child someday. To find the joy of discovery, to find the happiness of innocence, to find..."
"Hard to to find anything from your soul when you have such a huge bag hanging on your shoulders!" Alice blurted, her tone making it apparent that she just wanted to go home. "Besides, isn't your bag already full enough?"
Even though Marisa's bag was bursting with mushrooms when they had got here, she had somehow managed to enlarge it's content by a large first-aid kit and a wooden box full of... something she recalled Nitori calling "a moe".
Hey, maybe I should have her check them out, Marisa thought as her strayed thoughts made her remember the kappa's affection towards the things from the outside world.
This just might be a good time to leave the place be. For now.
"Yeah, I think you're right", Marisa said, making Alice a bit surprised that the black-white witch actually agreed with her so easily. "Let's get going, I wanna show the things I've found to Nitori!"
A sliding door opened as Marisa approached it. She took her broom and was about to take her leave...
But as Marisa was about to exit the building, the dolls that had been dragged around suddenly tugged her back inside, making the sliding door close behind her.
"Ow! Alice, what the he..." Marisa tried to say, but one of the dolls covered her mouth. As Marisa tried to take the doll off her face, she noticed Alice at the window pointing outside, forming words with her lips with a slight panic on her face.
There... was... someone... outside, Marisa managed to make out from Alice's lip movement, making her cease her struggle.
After Alice had released Marisa, she joined the puppeteer at the window to see the stranger.
The stranger had emerged from a building to their right, from one with a huge A sign nailed on it. Apparently, the man hadn't heard the commotion just now, as he kept slowly going forward while trying to carry a bag filled with metal, by the looks of it.
The first thing that caught Marisa's attention was that she actually had to refer the stranger as a man.
A male? Well, that's something you don't see everyday, Marisa thought. And man, his technique of carrying sucks ass.
The second thing that had caught her attention was the stranger's clothing. The man was wearing a yellow helmet, red shirt and grayish overalls, and he was also equipped with a pair of goggles. She had occasionally seen people wearing similar clothes, but that was mostly from books and pictures from the outside world.
What was it they were called, Enchinyaa? Marisa wondered. Jeez, he's really going to get in trouble with that bag if he keeps carrying it like...
The bag suddenly slipped from the man's hands, causing the metal parts inside to spread around him. For a moment, the man seemed like he would've killed everyone in the world, given the chance, but he seem have managed to hold it back. The man slowly collected the metal fragments back to the bag, and kept going with his little journey, trying a new way to hold the bag.
Their gazes followed the man, until the stranger had finally gone in the B building.
"Now's our chance, Marisa", Alice said, "let's get out of here before that man sees..."
Alice ceased her speech as she saw the glint in Marisa's eyes
"Marisa, you said your bag was already full enough", Alice said calmly. "Whatever that man was carrying would never fit your..."
"But that man has saved me the trouble", Marisa said, making her way towards the sliding door that was nearest to the B building. "I'll be back in a moment!"
It sounded like Alice would've wanted to protest against the idea, but Marisa was already on her way towards the B building.
"Darn, that was awful", Engineer mumbled as he had finally managed to reach his room.
He's never been that good of a friend with the bags, but his little incident just now really got on his nerves. Everything had gone really well just moments earlier, so his sudden misfortune made him a bit closer to the rage he had just managed to confine earlier.
But his thoughts were soon occupied by something he had noticed while retrieving his sentry; the other side of the teleporter was nowhere to be seen around the tower. The device had flown through the window, that's for sure, but it shouldn't have really gone that far.
...Well, I'll just go get the Scout and Sniper for now, Engineer thought with a sigh. I'll search for that thing later.
He took the shotgun with him, and made his way down the stairs. He planned to go and get the Sniper first, since his room was the closest. But as he had reached one of the corridors...
"Aw, hell. Now I forgot the wrench", Engineer mumbled as he realized that his usual habit of tapping was missing it's instrument. He began reluctantly to ascend the stairs, trying to convince himself that this misfortune of his won't last long.
Stay calm Engie, stay calm, he thought, trying refrain himself from going on another rage. It's just a coincidence, nothing more, just go get your wrench and find your teammates. And then we'll go find the Spy, and give him one hell of a...
Engineer halted as he saw someone coming out of his room. It was rather interesting feeling for him to acknowledge three different things and all of them at once. One, the person looked like a witch, a one with a blonde hair and black-white clothing. Two, the witch was carrying two bags, the other he recognized to be the bag he had just used. Three, his wrench was sticking out from the bag he had just used.
The witch seemed to be having a good time, right until she made eye contact with the Engineer. Both of them had frozen to their places, with cold sweat slowly beginning to drip on the girl's face. Neither of them let out a single word, as both of them seemed to have conflicting feelings on how to react to one another.
Suddenly, the Engineer felt that something in the back of his mind had just cut the final string holding down his rage.
Red Bread. Sunny Hay. Crummy's Burgers. Could this really be just that kind of a facility, Alice wondered as she recalled the banners she had seen around the complex. She had came out of the building they had just used as their cover, but still kept an eye out in case of the man.
As the place didn't contain any "gargoyles and whatnot", Alice had unwillingly found herself wondering about the origin of the complex. The place seemed to be well-suited for such operations implied by the banners, having railroad tracks for transport, storerooms for the ingredients and all. But she just couldn't figure out why someone would've brought something like this from the outside world. And not just why, but how. She had never seen such a spectacle before, even though she knew that...
Pow! Pow!
The sounds of gunfire suddenly brought Alice back from her wonderland. She turned her head to the building with the huge B sign on it, having a hunch of what might've happened.
Pow! Pow! Pow!
"Kyaaa! Alice, help me!"
"Come back, ya rotten thief!"
Oh, for the love of...
Alice took down the bag off her shoulders and ran to the left-side entrance of the building. Marisa soon came running from the corridor, relieved to see the puppeteer arming her dolls to confront the pursuer.
"Alice, that guy just went nuts for no reason!" Marisa yelled as she ran past Alice, "Try to hold him off!"
For no reason, huh? Hard to believe that, Alice thought, giving a sigh.
"Fine, I'll take care of..." Alice said, but then she realized what the black-white witch was planning to do. "Wha...?! Wait! You can't just pass the bucket... like... that."
But it was too late, Marisa had already taken off with her haul.
"Come back here!" the man yelled as he ran out of the corridor, shooting blindly with his gun.
As some of the bullets were about to hit Alice, her reflexes took over, making her dodge them and dash towards the stranger. She took out one of her dolls, Shanghai to be precise, and used the doll and it's lance to pierce through the man's shotgun, wounding his hand in the process. This made the man fall on his back and cry out for his wound.
"You really should watch out where you're shooting, mister. You don't wanna get hurt, do you?" Alice said, having Shanghai floating above the man with it's lance pointed towards him.
The man seemed to have recovered from his rage, as he replied while holding his wound.
"But that... witch just stole some of my gadgets! How else I should've reacted, missy?"
As Alice was trying to think of an answer for a rather relevant question, she noticed something odd about this scene. The stranger was clearly in a great deal of pain because of his wound, why is that? It would just heal on it's own in a couple of minutes, or in a couple of seconds if one has a healing factor like Yukari Yaku...
Alice suddenly realized that there was one crucial detail she had yet to confirm.
Oh crap, don't tell me...
"Um... mister?" Alice asked nervously, "Do you... happen to be a... human?"
Out of all the questions in the world, this seemed to be one that the man never expected one to ask from another after lancing one's hand.
"Well, what the hell I would be if not a human? An alien?" The man blurted out with a confused voice.
The next thing the man knew, the girl who had just been threatening him with a lance had suddenly knelt down beside him to see his wound with a panicking expression on her face.
Thank god I didn't use any Spell Cards, Alice thought as she checked the man's wound, he might have not been able to survive from one.
"Hold still for a moment", Alice said as she put her hands on the wound.
The man was still a little dumbfounded by the girl's sudden change of behavior, but he was brought back to the reality, when he realized that the burning feeling of the wound was suddenly disappearing. After a while, the girl took her hands from his wound, only to find that there was no trace of it on his skin.
"I'm so sorry for that just now", Alice said in an embarrassed voice, "I thought you were some kind of a Youkai from the outside world, I had no idea that humans would've ended up here with this whole spectacle. It has always been that when someone brings a shrine or sorts to this world, it has always been because of our kind or something, I never would've expected that humans would've been able to perform such a..."
Alice ceased her speech, as the man's expression indicated that he had lost the track of the conversation about a halfway to the first sentence.
"Whoa, whoa, hold on a little, missy", the man said, holding his head as like having a headache. "First of all, who are you? Or rather, what are you?"
Man, that was scary, Marisa thought as she flew above the Forest of Magic. But I'm sure Alice can take care of that man easily, he didn't seem to be that strong.
As Marisa was heading towards the Youkai Mountain, she noticed that she kept descending no matter how she tried to stay afloat. This reminded her why she had asked Alice to join her for her mushroom hunt (take a walk with her in a forest).
Aw man, it'd take hours to reach the Mountain like this, Marisa thought as she tried to stay high as possible.
"Urameshi-bleah!"
How about taking these mushrooms home... No, my house is in completely opposite direction now, I don't want to waste my time on that.
...Maybe Kourindou. Yes, I'll let Kourin take care of these while I go see Nitori, I'm sure he doesn't mind.
Setting her course towards Kourindou, Marisa still tried the best she could to stay up in the sky. Shortly after changing her course, something finally occurred to her.
Wait, did I just hit something back there? ...Meh, must've been my imagination.
Engineer was having a little hard time believing everything he was told, as the girl calling herself Alice Margatroid had just filled him in with a small trivia of this world, it's inhabitants and what she had seen earlier. He had brought the girl with him to his room, as he wanted to check out what else was missing after that... witch's visit.
The place where the facility had taken residence was apparently called Gensokyo, an isolated world inhabited by magical creatures rejected by the "outside world". And then the girl claimed to be one of those creatures, magician to be precise, and she had indeed assumed that he had been one as well.
He find the statement pretty hard to believe, as the girl looked completely like a human to him. But then again, there were these two dolls that kept floating beside her, seemingly interested about the room they and their master had been brought in.
And the... witch who had taken off with his gadgets was called Marisa, a friend of this Alice, and someone who apparently had a severe habit of "borrowing" things. But according to Alice, this Marisa was apparently a human, just like him. If she would've claimed their "species" the other way around, that would've made much more sense to him, given their clothing.
"You know, I find it a little hard to believe that all, missy. The stuff about magical monsters and worlds", Engineer said as he was going through his belongings.
"It's true", the girl replied, "and I could show you a few more trick or two, but you don't seem like one to believe it either way."
Got that right.
"I'm not that fond of the idea that people could use their minds or whatever you call them to control things beyond their limitations. It kind of goes against my studies on physics", Engineer said, while confirming that all of his wrenches had gone missing.
"That's the kind of belief that forced the creation of this world", the girl said, with bit of a sad tone.
Since the subject seemed to be a little repulsive topic around here, Engineer decided to keep the rest of his world view for himself.
But still, what was it she described as a light show, featuring huge red balls of light? It must've been caused by the teleportation, but the old man had never mentioned anything like that in his notes, Engineer thought as he recalled the blueprints of his grandfather. The ones he had used to build his current weaponry.
"Darn, looks like that girl stole my dispenser and both of my PDAs as well", Engineer said as he had confirmed what else was missing. But the list was soon enriched even more when he checked his last drawer. "And my Pistol, too? Ugh... How did it end up like this?"
As the girl saw the Engineer's agony, she let a sigh and turned her eyes to the Engineer.
"I guess there's no helping it", the girl said as she got up. "I'll help you find Marisa and retrieve your stuff, it's kind of my fault for letting her slide like that."
Engineer was a bit surprised by this offer.
"Oh, really? Well... thanks, but... You do realize I can't trust you just like that, missy?" Engineer said, recalling what she had did earlier. The girl seemed to understand that.
"Well, that much is given, no doubt", Alice said. "But I believe there's not really another way for you to retrieve them. I don't think that weapons of your kind could even be enough to kill a fairy."
The way she stated it gave Engineer an impression that the fairies were amongst the weaker creatures of this world. Would've she said the same, if she had known about his sentry, he wondered. But that wasn't really enough to earn his trust.
Then he remembered that he might not have to go alone with her.
"I see... You know, that does sound like a plan, but I'd like to gather my teammates first."
"Huh? There are more of you?" Alice asked.
Something about her tone struck Engineer as odd.
"You didn't see anyone else when you came here?" Engineer asked confusedly.
"No, you were the first we encountered here", Alice said as confused. "That's odd though, I bet someone would've butt in when Marisa was checking the place out, screaming with excitement like that."
Butt in. Something that Scout mastered rather well. Once you make a contact with that kind of an individual, there's no way you could ever forget his kind of an attitude. But for this girl to say so bluntly that she hadn't seen anyone else, she must've been telling the truth. About the Scout, at least.
But that might've made sense for the Sniper as well, as he has a habit to sit by the window with a sniper rifle in his hands. And he has a pretty neat view out of his room's window. Engineer had hard time believing that one could forget when one shoots you between the eyes.
He didn't even give a thought on Demo and Pyro, as he knew they weren't present at the facility during this... incident.
Even more worryingly still, if the girl was telling the truth, he really would have to join her to get back his equipment. Given the strikes of misfortune that had taken place now, Engineer was a bit reluctant to take on that offer. But since he didn't really have any means to defend himself, as he can't fix his shotgun without his wrench, it was a risk he had to take.
After a bit of a groaning, he finally made up his mind.
"Missy", Engineer said, bringing the girl out from the depths of her mind, "seems like we'll have to do it your way. I accept your offer, but I just have to ask you, why? Why would you help a stranger to get back his stuff from your friend?"
This made the girl thoughtful for a moment.
"Well, as far as I could tell, you haven't really came here to create any menace, correct?" Alice said.
"Uh, nope?" Engineer responded with a confused look. He still haven't figured how he got here in the first place.
"I think it would be justified for you to have something for your defence. There are some vicious beasts out there after all, and some of them might wanna pay a visit sooner or later. And besides", the girl knelt down on the floor while covering her face out of - for Engineer's surprise - shame, "you'd think that I'm just a weird puppeteer, if I left you with that kind of a first impression. I don't wanna be thought as a weirdo by your friends!"
A human in appearance and mentality, Engineer noted. And from the looks of it, that seems to be something she has been struggling with a lot. What a strange girl.
But still, it looks like that she just wants to help him. Or she's just deceiving him.
Engineer got out of the chair and went for his pile of metal. He began to dig the pile, sticking his hands further into it. This brought the puppeteer out of her embarrassment, as she had set her sights on him, wondering what he was doing. As the Engineer had finally found what he was looking for, he retreated his hands from the pile with a red toolbox in his hands.
As I thought, the witch didn't find it.
The box contained one of his free-time projects, a miniature version of his Sentry Gun. It still has it's flaws and he has no wrench to repair it if damaged, but it's still better than nothing.
He finally noticed the questioning look on the girl's face.
"Just something to assure myself in case of betrayal, missy", he said.
That seemed to answer her unspoken question.
"As I said, that much is given", the girl responded as she got back up. "Marisa said she wanted to show the things she had found to another friend of hers, so she's probably on her way to that mountain."
Engineer's gaze followed her finger's direction out of the window, meeting with the tall mountain in the distance.
"We'd probably be able to reach it by the afternoon, the place we're going is near the foot of the mountain."
Engineer let a sigh of relief, as he had thought that they would've had to climb it.
"Well then, missy..."
"Please, call me Alice", the girl said with a bit of an embarrassed tone.
"Okay then... Alice, I'm ready to go whenever you are", Engineer said, taking the toolbox on his shoulders.
"Okay, let me just go and get that..." Alice said, when she suddenly stopped by the room's door. She just stood there for a moment, seemingly trying to make a decision of some kind. "Or you know what, I think I'm ready to go. Which way should we go to make our exit?"
For a moment, Engineer could've sworn that he saw a smug smile on the girl's face. As for why... he thought it would be better to let it slide for now.
"Well, we could just jump down that bridge, the trees should be able to soften our landing", he said, pointing out of the window.
With their journey's start line decided, Alice opened the door and left the room with Engineer following her.
But as the two of them had reached the bridge and were about to jump...
"Oh, that's right, you haven't told me your name yet", Alice said suddenly.
This note made Engineer realize that it has been quite a while since someone had inquired his name. Among his teammates, they've just kept calling each other by their professions, so this question was quite refreshing. Even if he was a bit uncertain about the little journey ahead of them, it made a little smirk on his face.
"It's Conagher. Dell Conagher", Engineer said as they jumped among the treetops.
Chapter 2 Afterword:
EDIT 09/10/2013:
Some edits here and there.
Original Afterword:
Hello, this is FinnOtaku, the author of this fanfic about mad hatters and flying girls. Man, writing down a story is a bit more challenging than I had thought. I have the main points of the story pretty much figured out already, but I never would've guessed that thinking of the stuff in between would be so hard. This'll certainly be one interesting ride for me, writing this down =D
And seems like there have already been some people to check out the first chapter, over a hundred people as of now. Don't really know what to make of that yet, but I'm happy to see that some have considered it to be within their interest =)