Front yard, Scarlet Mansion
Leaving Meiling behind at the mansion's front gate, Reimu at Marisa trekked through the extravagant front yard on their way to the mansion itself.
"What is the use of having all these flowers if they won't ever be having any sunlight?" Reimu wondered as she walked by a row of exotic-looking flowers which like everything else are blanketed in a red tint by the scarlet aura.
"Well, most villain-types ain't very smart when it comes to such minor details. So maybe there's that..." Marisa said with a shrug as she followed right behind.
"That doesn't sound like someone who should be up to villainy like taking over Gensokyo..." Reimu said as she walked by bone-dry fountain that doesn't look like it was ever activated.
"I know some truly dumb villains who essentially defeated themselves thanks to their own stupidity." Marisa added. "They ain't real people, of course, but ya get the point."
"But this is reality..." Reimu argued.
Marisa doesn't even try to argue back. She remained silent for the remainder of the trek through the mansion's front yard, while mentally reminding herself to drag Reimu to the movie marathon she planned to have tonight. But for now, she has an Incident to solve, and a villain to stop with her friend...
...
Somewhere inside the Scarlet Mansion
"Remi..."
"I know, Patchy. The defenders of this land has come to my door step."
"You mean our doorstep..."
"Why don't you go and give them a cold welcome, Patchy? I want to see what they are capable of."
"..."
"Well?"
"As you wish, Remi..."
"Thank you. Now if you excuse me, I'm going to take a short nap. Oh, and be sure not to let them reach the basement. She's a pain in the fangs to deal with..."
...
Main hall, Scarlet Mansion
*BOOM*
With a large explosion, a hole is blown on the main door of the mansion.
"Thank Markle that we have Explosion Spells!" Marisa said gleefully as she entered the mansion through the hole.
Reimu entered right after Marisa, coughing a bit due to the dust from the explosion. "I thought you're bad influence to your little witch friends. Turns out the opposite is true as well..." She deadpanned.
Marisa gave a smug chuckle in response. "There's a saying that goes like this: 'Go in with a bang'."
Reimu crossed her arms and raised her eyebrows. "I thought it was out, not in?"
Marisa's smugness faded slightly. "Oh right! How can I forget 'bout it? Jeez..." She said awkwardly. "Wait, where the heck did ya hear that, anyway?"
"Your mother..." Reimu answered. "I heard her saying that when setting up the fireworks for the New Year's Eve party last year."
"She did? Guess I gotta talk to Mom more often..." Marisa said.
"Enough talk." Reimu interrupted as she raised her gohei. "We're not alone here."
Reimu is right. All over the extravagant hall (which looked like the one from Shinki's Palace complete with a fancy staircase, but with more bright colors), what looked like the mansion's maids all stopped their work to stare at the two girls who blew a hole in the mansion's front door.
Marisa scanned the entire hall (the scarlet aura had not affected the inside of the mansion, so everything is in their normal colors) as she counted the number of maids.
She counted 42.
"Hey there! We came here 'cause of a scarlet aura that's covering the whole dang place. Outside, that is. Can anyone of ya point us to y-" Marisa tries to do her usual 'thing', but is interrupted by Reimu.
"Look carefully, Marisa." Reimu informed the witch. "Despite looking like humans, they're not. They're fairies..."
Reimu was right (again). At first glance, these maids looked just like normal people. But on closer inspection, their fairy wings become very apparent.
And apparently, they doubled as the mansion's security, wasting no time to drop their current tasks as they all pulled what looked like muskets out of hyperspace.
"Oh, hell!" Marisa cursed as the fairy maids aimed their muskets and fired...
...
The Voile
As the sound of Reimu and Marisa engaging the fairy maids echoed thorough the mansion corridors, a purple-robed magician made her way through the library to the designated reading area.
"Get the spell ready, Assistant, because we are expecting visitors shortly..." The magician informed her assistant.
"What kind of visitors, Miss?" The assistant asked.
At that moment, the sound of an explosion rung out from the corridors and echoed thorough the library.
"The violent kind..." The magician answered.
The assistant glanced over her shoulders at the library entrance as the sound of gunshots, spell-casts and explosions got louder and closer.
"Right away, Miss!" She turned back to the magician as she acknowledged the command.
...
The skirmish in the mansion corridors lasted for half an hour, ending with a fairy maid getting blown through the door by Reimu's Ying-Yang Orb.
"Jeez, never expected fairies to put up that much of a fight..." Marisa, slowly hovering through the destroyed doorway, commented as she shook debris off of her hat, which is also covered in bullet holes.
"I never expected fairies to be this skilled at being security guards either..." Reimu also commented as she hovered through the doorway after Marisa. She then leaned down to pick up a musket dropped by one of the fairy maids. "Ugh...and being barbaric too..." She added as she threw the musket over her shoulders.
The musket clunked a fairy maid who is coming to on her head, knocking her out cold once again.
Marisa looks amused by Reimu's actions. "They're barbaric...because they use a lotta guns? Ya still think so, a year since we met Little Miss Princess Police?" She asked, referring to Kotohime.
Reimu didn't answer. She just moved on by herself.
Marisa shrugged in response. "Huh. Whatever..."
As the girls moved on, they took note of their surroundings, finding themselves to be in a huge library with rows upon rows of bookshelves on two floors. A chandelier is hung in the middle of the ceiling, illuminating the library with warm lighting together with various smaller lamps hung all over the library.
"Who would need this many books for?" Reimu wondered as her eyes scanned around the library.
"Either the tenant has a hobby of collectin' books, or we're gonna be dealin' with a magician next..." Marisa stated as she checked out one of the bookshelves.
Reimu took notice of Marisa's statement. "What makes you think the latter might be the case?" She asked.
"Well, Miss Mima has a lotta books about magic in her hideout, and me and my witch friends occasionally gave 'em a read when we need to know about something." Marisa explained. "These books look similar to those, so I figured they might-"
Both girls paused when they noticed some of the books moving out of the bookshelves on their own accord.
The living books removed themselves from the bookshelves, then opened wide and turned the open pages to face the girls. Spell circles began to materialize in front of each of the books.
"Hey, Rei..." Marisa said as she slowly raised her magic wand. "Ya ever heard of the phrase, 'out of the frying pan, into the fire'?"
Reimu immediately understood the situation, as she raised her gohei too. "No, but I get the context of the phrase."
Danmaku soon poured out from the living books in huge numbers...
I'm guessing that some habits from during my busy times (that ended a few weeks ago) stayed with me, because I subconsciously felt like I need to meet a deadline and so rushed this chapter. So I'm sorry if you found this chapter dull.
Anyways, Reimu and Marisa will soon be meeting Patchouli and Koakuma, and will be engaging them in battle. You want to know how this version of Patchouli will be fighting the heroines? Well, just read on to find out...
Fun fact about the fairy maids: seems that the official artists can't unanimously agree on what they look like. They were depicted by Hirasaka Makoto in Touhou Sangetsusei (the Three Fairies manga) as being as tall as human adults, but by Aki Eda in Silent Sinner in Blue and ZUN in the games as looking just like any other fairies. I decided to go with Hirasaka's depiction, and handwave their physical appearance as them being a race of fairies unique to wherever the Scarlet Mansion originally came from. Oh, and they're also a little bit smarter and more competent than Gensokyo's fairies, in case you haven't noticed their using muskets.
"And that, as they say, is that."
Afterwords end here...
