Hey, guys, it's Antagonist. Sorry for the longer-than-expected wait. Turns out that Writer's Block is a hell of a thing even when you haven't written in a while. I couldn't figure out how to end the first scene.

Anyways, this arc takes place at Hakugyokurou. And, as previously mentioned, the Mysterious Woman isn't gonna be doing much for a few arcs.

DISCLAIMER: Touhou Project belongs to Team Shanghai Alice, and StarCraft belongs to Blizzard Entertainment.

…

Abathur stared at the Hatchery in front of him. There were several other Zerg structures, but the Hatchery was the first, as logic would dictate. As such, Abathur was proud of the Hatchery, in a strange way.

He also saw something slithering out of the corner of his eye, but ignored it. It was probably just a Larvae. Besides, he had more important matters to attend to.

"Evolution Master," Bonjour called, walking up. Upon completing the hive, Abathur celebrated by letting the Youkai Zerg pick names for themselves, and Bonjour was the name that Vampire Ultralisk decided on. "Aya's here."

"She's not the only one!" Kappa Leviathan, who had chosen not to change her name, announced. "Kappa Leviathan can see that Aya brought Keine and Cirno with her!"

Abathur turned to face the oncoming trio. He saw Aya nearly every day (who could not shut up about how jealous she was that she wasn't at the Myouren Temple, by the way), and Cirno was at least somewhat a regular, but Keine was a rarer sight.

"Yoooo!" greeted Aya. "Abby! Keine needs something from you!"

This made Abathur curious.

"Requires my assistance?" asked Abathur. "Interesting."

"It's less about assistance and more like answers," clarified Keine as she landed in front of him.

"NEW PERSON!" yelled a nearby voice.

"Huh?" asked Keine. "What was that?"

Less than a second after she finished her sentence, Magician Infestor, now calling herself Witch, slammed right into her, knocking them both to the ground. A few "Infested Fairies" followed.

"What are your intentions with Evolution Master?!" Witch demanded, staring directly at Keine.

"Uh?" asked Keine, turning to Abathur.

"Does that to everyone," Abathur explained. "Does not trust others. Is…"

"She's totally infatuated," Cirno helpfully answered. "Kinda like Remilia with Reimu, except she's a lot more aggressive."

"I think the term you're looking for is 'yandere'!" Sniper, once known as Satori Hydralisk, piped up from several yards away.

"I am not!" Witch defended, not rising from the teacher.

"I do think Yandere's going a little too far," Bonjour agreed. Abathur noticed the slithering thing again. This time, he kept an eye on it. Since he had four of them, it was a simple task.

"Does any of this really matter?" asked Keine. "I'd rather just have her taken off of me. I like standing up."

"Kappa Leviathan," Abathur ordered, and the Zerg in question moved to remove Witch. "Had questions?"

"Right," Keine remembered. "You wouldn't have anything to do with the town that just popped up in the mountains, would you?"

"Do the people in the town look like this?" asked Sniper, pointing at an Infested Fairy.

"Yes!" Keine answered. "I mean, bigger, and without the wings or tentacles, but otherwise, yes!"

"Those are Terrans," Manip, formerly known as Amanojaku Viper, answered. "Humans from the Koprulu Sector. They just showed up and helped us start this hive."

"Huh," Keine answered. "Well-"

"Down!" Abathur commanded, willing a Roach to unburrow and knock Keine out of the way of the attacking… slithery-thing. Unfortunately, the Roach was burrowed directly beneath him, and he was knocked onto his back- the one place on his body not covered in carapace. The world began to fade to black...

...

When Abathur awoke, he found that he was not in the Zerg base. He also found that the sky was black.

He rose, and found that there was indeed grass where he was. The flowers around the area looked really nice, too. He found it strange that he found the flowers pleasing, but quickly pushed it to the back of his mind. He didn't need to think about that right then. More important was ascertaining the situation at hand.

He quickly discovered that he was not alone. Strewn about him in varying levels of consciousness were Keine, Cirno, and… his Overlord.

He wasn't sure what to think about that.

He crawled over to the ice fairy and shook her slightly. She blinked the sleepiness out of her eyes and rose, rubbing her face as she did.

"Wh…" Cirno began. "Wha's goin' on?"

"Unknown. Hoped you would explain situation," Abathur explained. "Thought you would recognize."

Cirno shook her head rapidly, then stopped, her eyes now wide. She was fully awake now.

"H-hey!" she announced. "I know this place! I've never been here myself, but Marisa's always talking about it! This is the Netherworld!"

Abathur would have raised an eyebrow if he had them.

"Netherworld?" he asked.

"Wazzat about the Nesserword?" Keine mumbled, half-asleep herself.

"Appear to be within confines," Abathur explained.

"Huh?" asked Keine, jerking up. She was awake now, too. "You're right! How did we get to the Netherworld? As far as I know, there's only two ways in- the gate, which is nowhere in sight, and-"

Keine cut herself off. Abathur immediately knew what she was talking about- if Yukari Yakumo could gap in and out of Gensokyo, who was to say that she couldn't gap in and out of the Netherworld?

Looking to his left, Abathur found that Cirno understood, too. She really was a pretty bright fairy. If she had been born Terran or Youkai, and were several years older, she could probably rival Nitori Kawashiro or Egon Stetmann in terms of technological prowess.

His thoughts were interrupted by a loud trumpet.

The trio turned, and Abathur had to say that the pink-clad, blue-haired girl with the trumpet was the most enthusiastic thing he had ever seen. For the record, that included himself when plotting against the Primal Zerg, Aya when she found a new scoop, Remilia when she saw Reimu, or Rumia when she smiled that terrifying smile. He was just glad that she was around five yards away.

At her side were a black-clad blonde girl and a red-clad brunette, with a violin and a keyboard, respectively.

"Welcome, newcomers, to the Netherworld! And, since there aren't very many sights to see, I'll just assume that you guys wanna go to Hakugyokuro?" asked the blue-haired one.

"The cherry blossoms aren't even in season, moron," the blonde one sighed. "And the only people here who ever leave this place are us and the two in that mansion."

"Hakugyokuro?" Abathur asked. Again, if he had eyebrows, one of them could be covering his eye and the other would be hitting the clouds right about now.

"A specific part of the Netherworld set aside for artists," Keine explained. "And, apart from this welcoming area, of sorts, the only part open to visitors. Yuyuko Saigyouji and her servant Youmu Konpaku live there. Lady Yuyuko is very close friends with Yukari."

If someone could be that close to Yukari, they probably weren't such good company themselves. However, in a bad enough situation, Abathur would put up with Yukari herself, let alone one of her friends. He currently didn't know if this was such a situation yet, but would soon find out. After all, this was Gensokyo. You could hardly go 24 hours without something strange happening.

"Although, you guys look like you could put up a good fight!" the red one grinned.

"Lyrica, don't," the black-clad one grimaced. "We are not here to fight."

"Aw, but fighting sounds like fun!" smiled the blue-haired one.

"We'd rather not-" Keine began.

"IT'S A FIGHT?!" Cirno yelled. "COUNT ME IN!"

"Too late. Fight commenced," Abathur commented.

"We're outnumbered, since you can't use Danmaku," Keine pointed out.

"Outnumbered. Won't be for long," said Abathur, moving closer to Keine.

"Huh?" she asked, before Abathur stole a small bit of hair and ate it.

Before the ghostly trio or Cirno could even get off one bit of Danmaku, the Overlord shook, and exploded. Where it had been sitting was a girl wearing pincer-shaped gloves and a miniature Overlord head as a hat.

She also wore green and purple clothes, ones that almost looked like… a sailor uniform. One day, Abathur was going to find out just who or what picked out the clothes for the Youkai Zerg, and he was going to beat the crap out of it for picking such creepy clothes. On that note, why were the Youkai Zerg wearing clothes in the first place?

Ah, well. He would just have to save that mystery for another time.

"Hakutaku Overlord," he announced. "Preferred name?"

"I shall be…" the Overlord narrowed her eyes in thought. "Lorde! Now, bow before me, everyone who is not Evolution Master!"

"She's an egoist with a funny hat," Keine mused dryly. "I hope that the universe isn't trying to tell me something."

"You! Source! You must bow, too!" Lorde demanded. "Just because you helped create me does not mean that you get special privileges!"

"I am not bowing," Keine deadpanned. "Abathur?"

"Lorde," he demanded. "Cease. Keine, higher ranking in Swarm than you."

"Well, good to know that I'm an honorary Zerg," Keine sighed.

Lorde scoffed, pouting. "Only because Evolution Master ordered me to! I will only bow to Evolution Master!"

"I already don't like'er!" Cirno pouted. "Are you sure she's on our side?"

"Aren't we going to fight?" asked the blue-haired ghost pleasantly.

"Lorde," Abathur demanded. "Assist in battle. Fight against…"

"We're the prismriver sisters!" the red-clad one explained. "I'm Lyrica! The trumpeter is Merlin! Finally, the one who won't let us have any fun is Lunasa!"

"Hey!" the black-clad one, Lunasa, yelled.

"It's true!" Lyrica chuckled.

As the two sisters continued to argue, Abathur stealthily added the Hakutaku sequences to the pet project growing within him.

"Are we going to fight, or what?" asked Cirno.

"That child is too bloodthirsty," Keine sighed. "Alright, we should get on this."

…

This chapter was originally supposed to have the fight with the Prismrivers, but I rushed a little to get it out faster. So, next chapter will have the fight.

In any case, yes! We're getting back on track. Your regularly scheduled Abathur has returned.

This is Antagonist, signing off. Remember to review.