Note* I'm waiting no longer. I apologize for late updates, but I've started rewriting the story. I won't replace the chapters until all of them have been rewritten, but you will continue to get updates on the less than pleasing style I'm writing in.
A very loud bang woke her up. The vibrations from the thump knocked her off of the metal bunk she was laying on and onto the cold, hard metal floor. She could hear a voice screaming to her left. "Damn it! No cage can hold me!"
Reimu blink and cleared her vision. She looked to her left but saw only a wall. After a moment she realized that the voice sounded familiar. "Yu… Yuuka?"
"So you're finally awake." Yuuka's voice was irritated and slightly cracked, yet somehow still kept that calm, intimidating inflection that struck fear into the hearts of human and youkai alike. A voice that Reimu found slightly dramatic, but not scary. "Maybe you can get them to say something other than 'unnecessary information'."
Reimu was still slightly dazed and didn't respond. She took a moment to survey her surroundings. She was completely enclosed in cold, hard metal. There was one rectangle jutting out from one of the walls; the bunk she fell out of. One wall was comprised of metal bars interlocking horizontally and vertically. Nothing that resembled a door could be seen. Through the slits she could make out a half-lighted corridor running sideways in front of the cell.
Echoing footsteps slowly made themselves heard. Yuuka remained silent, and Reimu decided it may be best to do the same. A humanoid figure walked by the cell and Reimu almost had a heart attack. The thing had dark, metallic skin that almost seemed to shine black. Their eyes were shaped normally, but contained no irises or pupils; just a sea of green. It was bald and wore some kind of white jumpsuit with bare feet, though the metallic coating and lack of toes gave the feet a very shoe-like quality. It glared at her for a moment, then soundlessly walked by, footsteps continuing to sound down the hall.
"What was that?" Reimu asked, slightly more exasperated than she meant to.
"They call it a drone." Yuuka replied. "I suppose you could say they're the equivalent to fairies in Gensokyo. I don't know what they are, but there's a lot of them."
Another one, or perhaps the same one, walked by in the opposite direction. Reimu stood up and tried to get this one's attention. "Where are we?" Reimu asked in a demanding tone of voice.
The drone stopped altogether and turned to face her. "Unnecessary information." It said in a very metallic voice.
Reimu tried to keep her cool. "Why are we being held here?"
"Unnecessary information."
"How long are we to be held captive?"
"Unnecessary-"
It was cut off midsentence by Yuuka's screaming voice. "We get it already! You won't tell us anything!"
"- information." The drone completed his thought without even glancing in Yuuka's direction.
As it walked off, Yuuka screamed. "I'll go crazy if I have to stay in here one more minute!" Reimu could see flashes of several colors and feel thumps and bangs aplenty coming from Yuuka's cell.
Reimu decided to approach the situation with a more level head. She took note of her surroundings again, looking for details she might have missed. Unfortunately, she couldn't find anything. Curious, she stepped back and shot a small flurry of amulets at the caged wall. The amulets that touched the metal turned black and fell to the ground in a pile of ashes. The ones that managed to slip through the small cracks simply vanished in a puff of yellow smoke. Since this was obviously not going to work, she turned to the other, solid walls of her cell. They seemed to not only feel cold, but to radiate it as well.
Her final observation: there was no escape; or so she thought. She was surprised when she noticed a rather large group of identical looking drones running past her cell at incredible speed. Shouting and banging could be heard down the long metal corridor, and bright flashes of light materialized from time to time.
It wasn't long before a very bright, and very familiar blast of pure energy blew down the hallway, engulfing it in a rainbow of colors. After a few silent moments, Marisa of all people struts into the hallway, looks straight at Reimu, waves, and says "Yo."
Reimu gives her a half-hearted look, which quickly changes to frustration. "Hi. Can you get me out of here?"
Marisa pulls out her mini-hakkero, still smoking, and points it at Reimu. "You might wanna duck." Reimu did so, and not long after her cell was bathed in that searing hot light that Marisa prized so much. When the light cleared, Reimu stood up to see a very annoyed looking Marisa. The front of her mini-hakkero was scorched and black, looking almost unusable now. "Crap."
Reimu simply walked out of the cell and looked around. The light was dim, and it didn't help that she was just staring at a bright laser. "Where are we? What's going on?" Instead of an answer, she got a blaring alarm that tore at her eardrums. Red lights began flashing everywhere, almost draining out all other color.
"We'll talk on the way. Come on!" Marisa grabbed Reimu by the wrist and started running. She caught a brief glimpse behind her and thought she saw two familiar figures behind them, though she didn't have time to make out exactly who it was.
"Long story short, we were dragged onto the huge sphere, thrown in those cells, and that's that." Marisa's voice was barely audible over the sirens and buzzers, but Reimu managed to make out what she was saying.
"Who was the one that brought us up here?" Reimu asked between gasps.
"That Gig person." They continued running until they came to a very large, mostly empty room. Scratch that, the room itself was as larger than the Scarlet Devil Mansion and easily six stories higher. Catwalks and pathways ran this way and that through the empty space, leading to several openings and doors in the walls. Drones, hundreds of them, walked to and fro all throughout the pathways. From the ceiling drooped a massive rod that gave off a very green color. Aside from that rod, the entire room seemed to glow blue, and the red flashing lights seemed to only be behind them.
Reimu finally got a chance to look behind her. She was slightly surprised to see Alice and Okuu, staring incredulously at the mighty green rod in the center of the room. Marisa was staring down to a floor that could not be seen. Only faint blue light fading downward was present underneath them.
"What does this thing run on…?" Okuu mumbled to herself.
That remark was met with Alice snapping "Focus, bird-brain!"
Okuu didn't look too happy about that, but she didn't have time to respond. Dozens of drones started rounding the corner behind them and followed in pursuit. They didn't get very far before being incinerated in a bright pink light that highly resembled Marisa'a Master Spark.
Yuuka, red faced and tattered, rounded the corner. She was breathing rather heavily. "You left me." She said quietly. "You didn't spare me a second thought and just left me there."
"Can we talk about this later?" Marisa said anxiously. "For now, let's focus on escaping." The drones seemed to stop coming for a while, and they all decided to walk instead of run. Each was rather tired, so no one complained.
After what felt like an hour of wandering, Alice finally voiced a question they all had. "Okay, how are we getting past all these… drones you called them?" Reimu nodded. "… without getting caught?"
Marisa waved her hand in front of one the passing by drones, being careful not to obstruct of touch it in any way. It didn't respond at all. "How come we were being chased by them before, but not now?"
No one knew the answer, so the question remained unsatisfied. Endlessly they walked, through room upon room, over walkway upon walkway, dodging drone after drone after drone. It quickly seemed like they would be stuck inside this massive floating sphere for quite a while.
It was a scream that awoke their senses. A high. Slightly forced scream that echoed through the rooms, making it difficult to track its source. A chill ran down everyone's spine when they finally recognized who it was.
Patchouli Knowledge was somewhere close by.