Chapter 3: Border Patrol

Back at the Red Base, earlier that day

The Engineer headed up the creaky wooden steps to the Sniper's room, pondering about the events that had happened in detail. Before the Engineer got up the steps, the Sniper rounded the corner, weilding his Kukri in one hand, rifle in the other.
The Sniper was a intresting man, to say the least. No one knew his real name, and he persisted that people stop pestering him about it, which they obliged. He wore a slouch hat, folded at the brim, with a light brown band of alligator teeth wrapped around the crown of it. His jacket was rugged, worn from years of the Australian outback.
He had a usually calm demeanor, keeping to himself, and rarely working with others.

"Sniper, I was looking for ya."

"Let me guess Truckie, we are not in the middle of the bloody desert anymore and you thought I wouldn't bloody know." The Sniper replied.

"Well, we also have the Blu Spy here."

"That slippery backstabbing snake is stuck here too? This just gets better and better."

The Spy then came in behind the Engineer, replying "Yes, joyous days, I'm stuck in the middle of the forest with the two people who want to rip out my guts. Simply splendid." the Spy mocked.

Then voices came from the distance, to which the Sniper went onto the deck, and searched with his Sniper, to which then his face was confused.

"I think you two may be interested to see this." The Sniper handed his rifle to the Engineer who looked through, seeing two girls on a broomstick, and another just flying without anything.

"Well, now i've truly seen everything." He handed the rifle to the Spy, who just shook his head in disbelief.

"They are coming this way, since they probably heard the boom. Have any plans Texan?" Spy asked.

"We don't know whether they want to kill us, or talk, and from here it's quite hard to tell. I would personally try reasoning with them, as I really do not want to fight another person with magic, I still remember the whole deal with the wizard, and i'd prefer not having a structurally superfluous new behind." The Engineer replied.

"I agree." The Sniper blurted. The Spy concurrred.

"Marisa, once we get off this thing, I'll kick your.."

"Calm down,ze. Do you want to know what that building is or not?" Marisa replied.

"Fine, but it's going come back on you eventually."

"Yeah, yeah, I know. Reimu, you really need to speed up here, i'm lagging back just for you."

"You know i'm not the fastest flyer Marisa." Reimu simply replied.

"Understatement."

"Why you little witch, i'll put you in your place if I must."

"Geez, i'm just joking Reimu, no need to be all serious." Marisa explained .The trio decended to the ground, which then Alice slapped Marisa across her face.

"That's for dragging me along." Marisa rubbed her cheek, then noticed the person coming out of the strange building.

"Hello there little ladies." said the man.

"Hello to you as well, may I ask about this..fort here?" asked Reimu.

"Reimu, you forgot to introduce us." Alice stated.

"Oh, sorry, I jump ahead of myself sometimes. I am Reimu Hakurei of the Hakurei Shrine." Reimu then bowed.

"I'm Marisa, you got that, ze?"

"I'm Alice Margatroid, It is a pleasure to meet you Mr..."

"Conagher, Dell Conagher. My two allies will be down in a moment."

"There's more of you guys?"

"Yeah, there are three of us here, but there are nine of us in total, since it seems our base got torn in half, and I am still trying to figure out how we got here."

"You didn't come here on your own, not an invasion or anything?" Marisa asked.

"Nope."

"I told you it wouldn't be an invasion Marisa."

"Awww, I was hoping to fight something." The Sniper and Spy then came through the fort's doorway, both wielding their firearms.

"So, you are not dead Engineer, I applaud your diplomatic skills." The Spy blurted, lighting a new cigarette in the process.

"I'm guessing you two are his allies?" Alice inquired.

"I guess you could say that." The Sniper replied.

"Names?" Reimu asked.

"Mundy." Sniper blurted.

"Simple and easy to remember, I like it." Marisa responded.

Suddenly, a gap appeared behind Reimu, startling her. Out of the gap came three people, of various shape and size. The tallest of them wore a purple dress, with golden eyes and long blonde hair wrapped into a white mob cap, with a large red bow on the front.
The second tallest wore a blue and white dress, with green eyes and short blonde hair under a pale pink two-tailed hat covered in many amulets. Her eyes seemed to sparkle a bright gold, similar to the tallest, but not exactly. The most defining featue though was her nine tails, poking in all directions from her backside. Then there was the shortest. She wore a red dress with a gold trimming and white frills at the bottom. She also had dark brown eyes and hair, wearing a green mob cap over a pair of black cat ears, which twitched from time to time. Two tails emerged from her backside, swaying back and forth.

"Yukari, Ran, Chen, it is good to see you." Reimu humbly said in response.

"Likewise, Shrine Maiden. Now who do we have here?"

"Three people who have no idea how they got here." Marisa replied.

"I'm sorry if this is intruding ya'll's place, but all we want to do is get home." The Engineer simply said.

"I agree with that statement." Sniper agreed.

"Likewise." The Spy said in response.

"Hmm, this border disruption considerably weakened me, so I will not be able to transport you at the moment. If you could wait a couple of days, I may be able to transport you back to where you need to go." Yukari replied.

"I do not believe you have introduced yourself, Mistress." Ran added in.

"Oh, thank you for reminding me. Yukari Yakumo, youkai of boundaries, at your service. My accomplices are Ran, my personal shikigami, and behind her is Chen, Ran's shikigami."

"Mistress, we must go, your meeting with Shikieiki is in three minutes."

"Oh wonderful, I am sorry, but I must go, but one more thing, you guys weren't the only disruption, there were more. Take this, I marked all the locations where I felt them." Yukari handed Reimu a map, with X's marking 6 locations.

"Take care shrine maiden, don't let the bed bugs bite." Yukari blurted, chuckling as she went back through her gap with her shikigami. Reimu examined the map in her hand, closely observing it. "Hmm. Quite a variety of places we have here."

"Speaking of here, you have yet to tell us exactly where we are." asked the Sniper. Reimu put her palm to her face.

"Wow, I am forgetting things left and right today. You are in Gensokyo, the land of magic."

"Where is this Gensokyo located?" Spy inquired

"Japan." Marisa blurted.

"Well, that puts things in perspective." stated the Engineer, who was packing his things.

"We may want to split into groups, if we want to investigate them the fastest." added the Spy.

"Good plan, we'll do groups of two. We'll each go to a location, but since there are five, two teams will have to do two locations." Reimu explained. "Alice, you go with Dell to the Youkai Mountain and the lake. Marisa, you go with Mundy to the Bamboo Forest and the Netherworld gate. I'll go to the one near my shrine, with.."

"Just call me the Spy."

"Okay then, any questions?" Reimu finished.

"Nah, let's go Mundy." Marisa said plainly.

"Alright then, let's get to it mate." The Sniper replied. The two then got on a broomstick and headed towards the Bamboo forest.

"Let's move, we want to get to the Lake before nightfall." Alice explained.

"Alrighty then, let's move out." The Engineer and Alice then headed down a path through the Forest of Magic.

"I guess we should be going to your shrine?" asked the Spy.

"Let's." The duo travelled down a small cobbled road, leading to the Hakurei Shrine.

Been a bit since the last chapter, mainly because I got a new laptop, and I have to deal with the dreaded Windows 8. *shudders* Anyways, it's a bit short but it's mainly just an intro, as the other chapters before this were. Next chapters are going to be a bit longer, and I would still like to hear your thoughts about my little story, so please leave a review.