Welcome.
To our world...
Xxxxx
"So as it turns out, he's a human who runs on some super special, high-voltage batteries." A bubbly voice full of scientific expression.
"Ugh, but humans don't run on batteries." A disdainful voice full of prejudice.
"Are you tryin' to say he's part machine?" An ordinary voce full of kleptomania.
"You mean like an android?" A modern voice full of (read: lacking in) common sense.
"No, he's definitely a human. There are no machine parts, other than this hi-tech choker. Maybe some electrical implants, but that's a different story." The first voice confirmed.
Accelerator's eyes shot open. He immediately brought his hand to the switch on his choker, only to find that it was already on. And that something spherical was hanging down from it.
"Ah, he's awake." A blonde in a black, pointed hat noticed.
"Well, that's the power of a single head from one of my Speed-style Puppets for you, enough to keep your life support contrivance up and running for the rest of your life! ...Probably." A blue-haired girl wearing a matching blue dress, a green hat, and a matching green backpack put her hands on her hips and smiled proudly at him.
Accelerator sat up from the bed he was resting on. He caught a glimpse of a smaller green hat and blue hair when he looked down. A Puppet head was hanging right under his choker's switch. But that wasn't the only odd thing. Even though his switch was on, his auto-redirect wasn't working to obliterate the head. That meant either that his vector manipulation powers weren't working, or that the puppet head was a part of him now, just like the choker. He couldn't decide which scenario was worse. But that wasn't enough to take his main worry off his mind.
"Well, don't you have something to say to her?" A green-haired girl wearing a frog's head hairclip and a blue-and-white shrine maiden-esque outfit asked him, probably expecting him to thank the blue-haired engineer for saving his life.
"Where's Last Order?" That wasn't what they were expecting. The four girls looked confused. "The little girl I'm responsible for, her name is Last Order... Younger than you lot, I'm pretty sure... Short, brown hair with an antenna-like ahoge... Says 'Misaka, Misaka' a lot." But they were still confused. "I brought her to this rundown shrine because she wanted some kind of puppet."
"Rundown, huh! That's it, out! Everybody out!" A brunette in a red-and-white true shrine maiden outfit suddenly became mad.
Xxxxx
"...She kicked us out." The blonde was not surprised. "Don't get her wrong though, Reimu means well. She was really concerned when you suddenly appeared, unconscious, at her gate. She was the one who tried to nurse you back to health until Sanae somehow brought Nitori here."
Apparently, Reimu referred to the brunette shrine maiden, Sanae referred to the verdette shrine maiden-esque girl, and Nitori referred to the blunette engineer.
"An' I'm Marisa! So you got a name for yourself?"
"...Accelerator." He hesitantly complied. These girls clearly were not from his world of Academy City. Or was he the one out of place?
"Sorry, we couldn' help ya find yer girlfriend, Accelerator," His cheek twitched at Marisa's choice of word, "But at the very least, I think I know what she may have been lookin' for."
Marisa pulled out a tiny spool of red thread that unraveled to present a small, Puppet version of herself. But since it didn't look anything like a frog, he decided it wasn't what the brat was looking for.
The Puppet jumped, took a bow, spun in a circle, and finally sat down. But the strange part was that neither did Marisa's hand touch the Puppet, nor did it even move.
"These creatures are called Puppets. Some people keep 'em as pets. Others use 'em to battle. I, myself, use 'em to battle."
"...I half expected you to say you study them and call yourself the Puppet Professor." Accelerator remembered a certain famous game that was played worldwide.
"I know, right!" Sanae seemingly got the reference.
"But I think that position probably goes to Alice, right?" Nitori interjected. "She was super keen on puppets even before these creatures appeared that day."
As it turned out, this Puppet situation was only recent. And Accelerator's appearance coincided with their arrival, so Sanae explained to him that a sudden weakness in the barrier between worlds was caused by the flood of Puppets and resulted in Accelerator appearing in Gensokyo. She also began explaining that Gensokyo was separated from the Outside World by a barrier, but Accelerator already had the idea after having to listen to the tourists from before.
"Huh? You already knew that? That makes things quick. We don't know what caused the flood of Puppets, but there are too many of them to be dealt with right now. For now, we're been strengthening the barrier and keeping the effects from reaching the Outside World, but it's no coincidence if you got pulled in, regardless. On top of this, while the barrier is strong, you probably won't be able to get back to where you were either."
That didn't please Accelerator at all.
"Bah, don't look so worried! I'll resolve all this lickety split! You just stay here, sippin' tea with Nitori and Sanae." Marisa was confident in her puppet battling abilities.
But that ticked Accelerator off even more. He touched a pebble at his foot, intending to use his vector manipulation to shoot it at Marisa's Puppet. But the pebble only moved an inch.
His powers weren't working. He was shocked. In a fit of rage, he kicked the pebble with full force at the Puppet, but it jumped to the side and evaded.
"Oi oi! You can't battle a Puppet by yourself! These things are too strong for ordinary humans like you to fight! I get that you're pissed about not bein' able to do anythin', but you're gonna need your own Puppet if you wanna be of any help. Here, follow me to the back of the shrine. I got a lotta things to teach ya!"
Since Accelerator was powerless, he regretfully submitted and followed the three girls toward the mountains beside Reimu's shrine. The four of them entered some tall grass and, just like a certain game, a creature popped out. It looked like Sanae.
"There's even a Puppet of me?" Sanae looked surprised.
"Yup, they tend to take the form of those with interesting abilities. Here, you can borrow mine if you want to catch it." Nitori offered Sanae her Level 5 Nitori Puppet to battle the Level 2 Sanae Puppet.
"Really? Thanks, that means a lot."
"Everyone should catch a Puppet of herself, I feel."
"Let's see, we first weaken the Puppet with attacks. Nitori Puppet, use Yin Energy!"
A line of white energy bullets appeared in front of the Nitori Puppet and shot toward the Sanae Puppet. It almost knocked it out!
The Sanae Puppet used Yang Energy in response. A row of white energy bullets emanated outward from the Sanae Puppet. A bunch hit the Nitori Puppet for a reasonable amount of damage.
"Next we use a Seal Thread to bind it." Sanae threw a spool of red thread which unraveled and wrapped around the weakened Puppet.
"And finally, use Yin Energy once again to knock it out!" The thread tightened around the knocked out Puppet, compressing into a bicone shaped spool. "Alright, I caught a Puppet of myself!"
That was a different system of catching than Accelerator expected. It was quite a bit more lenient than the system from the game he was thinking of.
Accelerator took one step forward, but Marisa called him back. "Watch out! Here comes another one!"
This one had white hair, red eyes, and the same black shirt and gray pants that Accelerator used to wear, before he got shot in the head and the weather grew colder. It was also sporting half-closed eyes and a scowl on its face. Simply put, it was a Puppet form of him.
How did Accelerator feel about this development? Not even he was sure.
"Looks like you're quite the interestin' fellow yourself, huh? I'd recommend you catch it 'cause no one knows you better than yourself. If you want, you can borrow my Puppet to weaken it. You've already seen what to do."
"No, I'll just need one of those threads."
"Are you sure?" Sanae asked while handing him a Seal Thread.
"No one knows me better than myself, after all." Accelerator knelt down and let the Puppet touch the thread by itself. "Simple." The Accelerator Puppet was caught!
"Huh. It might be personal, but mind tellin' me how you did that?" Marisa tried to pry.
"No. It is personal."
"Well, that's fine then. But now that you have a Puppet, lemme test ya. Use that to fight with my Puppet."
"It was decided that disputes in Gensokyo would be settled with a shootout." Sanae explained.
"Usually this would be with danmaku, but due to the influence of the incident, Puppet battles have become commonplace." Nitori added.
"But since you're a beginner, I'll let you get ready." Marisa informed. "Touch the spool to check its status and skills."
When Accelerator ran his thumb across his red spool, words and numbers appeared:
Info
Accelerator | Lv 1
Style | Normal
Type | Void/Dark
Emblem | Red
O.T. | Accelerator
ID No. | 886886
EXP | 0 NEXT 10
On the next side:
Stat
HP | 11 | C
FoAtt | 6 | A+
FoDef | 6 | A+
SpAtt | 6 | E
SpDef | 6 | C
Speed | 6 | S
PP | 0
Ability | Frail Health
Take no damage from attacks that do not penetrate the barrier.
And on the final side:
Skill
Speedy Barrage | SP 5
Dense Barrage | SP 5
He touched 'Speedy Barrage' and more information popped up:
Type | Void
Cat. | Focus
SP | 5
Pow. | 140
Acc. | 100%
Pri. | 0
The Skill 'Dense Barrage' was nearly identical, with just the Category of Spread instead of Focus. Perhaps that was similar to the Physical/Special split from that other game. But Accelerator thought two base 140 power skills with the same Void Type may have been too unreasonable for a Level 1 Puppet.
'Well, if I know myself, this should be easy.' Accelerator thought. "Alright, I'm ready." He sent out his Puppet.
"So if you win, we won't have to worry about ya goin' out an' gettin' into fights. But if you lose, at least you'll get some experience in battle, and the taste of defeat will drive you forward. It's a tough world out there."
"...Use Speedy Barrage."
"Use Yin Energy!"
The Marisa Puppet moved first and tried to shoot Yin Energy at the Accelerator Puppet, but it was blocked by a supernatural force.
"...Kekekek...khahakakaka! Looks like that attack doesn't penetrate the barrier!"
The Accelerator Puppet summoned numerous energy bullets that rushed toward the opposing Puppet. The resulting explosion revealed Marisa's Puppet, knocked out with dizzy eyes.
Accelerator's Puppet grew 4 levels.
The girls stared, speechless. Accelerator could never get enough of that reaction: silence. He could get used to this Gensokyo place.
Xxxxx
...So the Speed Nitori Puppet head is strong enough to keep his brain running for the rest of his life, but not strong enough to let him access his powers... is what I'm trying to hint at. And that's why he's keeping his Puppet to compensate.
886886 was my ID Number from my original playthrough. I couldn't think of another one for Accel.
So what exactly is ooc about a Touhou Accel? True he doesn't like destroying lolis ever since he was punched in the face, and Touhou is jam-packed with lolis, but a Puppet would have no such qualms against other Puppets, right? I think it's that he forgets things more often now. What happened to worrying about Last Order? Maybe Puppets are just that engrossing? Or maybe it's just the writer's fault, b/c I'm the one who forgets things often.
I brought in Nitori at the beginning, breaking sequence, b/c she's the closest thing Touhou has to the Heaven Canceller, and that was way too easy a plot device to just not use. This is also where I'm getting the idea of AccelxNitori crossover crack from. Her sister's tangential references to him also help.
How are the girls' voices, btw? I used much of their in-game lines and extrapolated from there.
Just in case you're wondering about Accel's Puppet's Normal Style stat spread, I came up w/ this after years (read: months) of Touhou Theorymonning:
40/75/45/75/45/70 BST 350
I gave him Assist Akyuu's defenses, Normal Marisa's Speed, and Normal Shinki's Spread Attack & Base Stat Total. The HP & Focus Attack were arbitrary, so I decided to make the Focus & Spread Attack stats symmetrical. I also have his Speed, Defense, and Extra Styles' details in reserve.
You may also be thinking, 'Isn't giving him Frail Health (equivalent of Wonder Guard) w/ only 3 weaknesses (Steel, Light, & Fighting) and more than 1 HP, as well as two really powerful stab moves at Level 1 too unreasonable?' He was thinking the same, after all. To which I say, he's Accelerator. He always starts off nearly unbeatable and is nerfed along the road. He will not keep Frail Health or the Barrage skills forever. Just wait for the Style change at Level 30.
I've actually never seen Speedy Barrage or Dense Barrage used in Shard of Dreams, so I just made up my own description. If anyone knows, was it anywhere close to the in-game animation?
Cheers!