Note* He's one of my favorite characters, so I had to put him in the story, even if he only gets a small part. You'll know who I mean soon.
Technology… Marisa pulled out her mini-hakkero and stared at it. Whatever's going on here, it's definitely not from Gensokyo. She hopped on her broom and started flying toward Kourindou. If there's anyone to ask about the outside world, it's Kourin.
She didn't have to fly far. Soon the weather worn building known as Kourindou came into view. As she usually did, Marisa walked straight in without knocking. "Hey Kourin! You there?" She walked a little deeper into the shop, passing assorted odds and ends that were mostly unrecognizable, and found Rinnosuke and, surprisingly, Yukari having what appeared to be an argument.
"Ah, Marisa-san." Rinnosuke said. "I was wondering when you'd show up again."
"Am I interrupting somethin'?"
"No, no. Yukari-san and I were just discussing our business arrangements. Was there anything you needed?"
Marisa hesitated. "I suppose it's good you're here, Yukari. I wanted to know if anything strange was going on in the outside world."
Yukari answered. "Nothing out of the ordinary as far as I know."
"Nothing stranger than usual has come through the border." Rinnosuke answered as well.
Marisa sighed. "Figures…" She turned to leave the store. "Thanks any-" she was cut off by a loud crash from outside. She bolted outside to see what happened, as did Yukari. Over the horizon, above the Forest of Magic, was a trail of silver colored smoke. She couldn't be sure, but the trees under that general area seemed discolored. Isn't that Alice's house? She thought. I thought she wanted to stay out of this.
"What in the world was that?" Yukari exclaimed.
"Wanna find out?" Marisa pulled held up her broom. Without waiting for an answer, she took off toward the smoke. Yukari decided to stay behind.
"Who… who are you?" Alice asked, her voice quivering from shock.
"No one of consequence." Was the reply from the girl standing before her. She was dressed in a skin tight, black jumpsuit with metal beams winding this way and that all over her. Her skin was dead white, and her eyes shone a brilliant green. Her ankle length, glossy black hair was unkempt and messy. Surrounding her was a cloud of what seemed to be insects which buzzed in a regular pattern all over her. "You need not worry. It will be swift and painless." Her voice was completely monotone, and her face showed no expression.
When Marisa finally showed up, she could barely believe what she saw. All of Alice's once obedient dolls were now doing everything they could to tear down the whole forest, literally. Most of them were busy ripping up grass and dirt and throwing it into a fire built uncomfortably close to Alice's cottage. Some were dismantling the house piece by piece. The scariest of all, though, were the ones busy laying iron plates over the ripped up ground. Upon closer inspection, she saw that most of the forest behind Alice's house was completely covered in metal, and the trees coming up from that ground were silver. The smoke she saw earlier was coming from slightly deeper into the forest.
"Alice!" She called. "What's going on here?" Then she saw the girl standing across from Alice. "Who are you supposed to be?"
"Irrelevant."
"That's not much of a name."
"That is not my name. You simply do not need to know, therefore it is irrelevant information."
Alice blinked. "You're a cyborg, aren't you?"
"I am not mechanical in any way. I am what you refer to as human."
Alice and Marisa both shuddered. How is that possible? Marisa asked.
"Now that you've shown up, I'll have to kill you too." The girl said, looking dead at Marisa.
Marisa smirked. "Just try it." As if on cue, several of Alice's dolls dropped what they were doing, pulled out there small lances and surrounded her. It was sheer luck that she managed to jump to the side before they stabbed her through. "What? How?!" She exclaimed. "Alice why did…" She stopped mid-sentence as she noticed something strange about the dolls. There were small rips in the seams, and through the holes Marisa could barely make out a shifting black mass inside with a very slight green glow. She stared at the girl with the cloud around her. "How?"
"Irrelevant." The dolls began their advance again. This time Marisa was prepared, and a flurry of stars erupted from her, each one knocking out a doll. The problem was that once they were hit, they just kept coming. She finally lost her patience and pulled out a small card.
"Magic Sign: Stardust Reverie!" Several pulses of rainbow colored stars erupted from her position, incinerating the dolls close by her and incapacitating those farther away. When the commotion died down she stared at the other girl with an evil look on her face. She tried to kill me.
"You are stronger than you look." The girl said. "I underestimated you. I will not make that same mistake again." The cloud of insects around her seemed to speed up. " : Nano Swarm.""
Immediately, the cloud of insects raced toward Marisa. It completely engulfed her, and stinging and burning pains could be felt all over her body. She started trying to swat the things away, but that only made it hurt worse. Alice stood by, unable to do much without her dolls, and tried to stay inconspicuous. In desperation she tried her spellcard again. "Magic Sign: Stardust Reverie!" Blazing lights flashed again, and for a moment, it seemed to have worked. Then the pains came back, even worse than before.
Alice had apparently come out of her shock and regained control of a few of her less damaged dolls. They had their lances out and charged straight at the girl, but were stopped cold by another cloud that seemed to come out of nowhere.
Marisa tried to ignore the pain and come up with some kind of counterattack. The pain was causing her to sweat. That's when she got her answer; something from the swarm landed in a bead of sweat and a tiny explosion could be heard. Water! Marisa thought. She tried to remember some kind of water spell, but just couldn't. Alice tried again. Her dolls, after all, couldn't really feel pain. They came out much more ripped and tattered than before, but still managed to make it to the girl. They charged their lances into her before she could react, and she stepped back in pain. The cloud around Marisa ceased for a moment, and she was able to remember the spell. After a brief moment, a cloud started forming directly above her position, and a small-rain shower started falling. The cloud around her buzzed and cracked, and it fell to the floor, leaving a small heap of black dust around her feet.
The girl had a terrified look on her face. "I… I was told…" she said, sounding rather scared. She had apparently dropped the monotone voice for now. Alice's dolls grabbed her and pinned her down as Marisa released the spell and the rain stopped.
Marisa and Alice walked up to her, and Marisa knelt down to stare into the girl's eyes. "Now tell me who you are."
The girl tried to maintain a straight, emotionless face, but still looked terrified. "Data…" she mumbled quietly.
"Louder."
"Data Signal." She spoke up, but said no more.
"What were those things that attacked us?" Alice asked.
"Nanobots, small machines that I had control over, and you shorted them out with your water." She sounded angry.
"What were you trying to do here?"
That's when something strange happened. An unfamiliar voice shouted "DATA!" Marisa looked up to see someone else floating above the trees. She noticed that Data blanched slightly, despite her already white skin, and was staring at the floating girl with a slight look of horror. "You've been ignoring our summons." The floating girl said accusingly. She had dead white hair tied in a very long ponytail. The ends of her hair glowed various colors of the rainbow, and were constantly shifting. Her eyes were colorless, yet her outfit was… bold. She was wearing a dark purple tank top with disconnected, flowing sleeves of silver, light blue, bell-bottom pants, and what appeared to be sandals with metal soles. "Power happens to like you, so this is your final warning. Return at once or be terminated." She sounded rather upset.
"Who're you?" Marisa asked the floating girl.
"Name's Optic. Who the hell are you?" She replied.
"Marisa Kirisame."
"Pleasure." She didn't sound to enthusiastic. "You comin' or what, Data?"
The white skinned girl started sweating slightly. "Please," she maintained her monotone voice. "If you'll allow me to continue what I was doing I can have these pests eliminated in-"
"You were given an order, human."
"Y-yes, Fibre Optic." We have her pinned down. How's she gonna go- From behind some of the metal trees, large black spheres, each with a green eye in the middle, flew out and hit Marisa with a strong laser blast. She was knocked off, and Data brushed herself off. "For the record," she said to Marisa and Alice, "I could have done that at any time." She waved her hand over a section of metal on her arm, glowed slightly, vanished in a wave of green light, reappearing next to Optic. "We will meet again." And with that, the two flew off.