Chapter 4: Atomic Pt. 2

The robotic wolf that Neolect was inhabiting had made it a good way down into the cave. It was fairly dark, but small amounts of light were still present. Seeing in the dark wasn't a difficulty for a machine designed for a cave environment, anyways. Water dripped from stalactites all around. This entire cave system was quite damp, as well as drafty. A human would find themselves quite cold and uncomfortable, but Neolect had no concept of comfort, so everything was fine.

"You know," Neolect communicated to Nitori, "given everything I've seen and heard about Gensokyo, I was expecting this place to be dangerously corrosive or full of monsters."

Nitori chuckled. "I assume that means you haven't run into any fairies yet, huh?"

"Fairies?"

"Yeah, small little humanoid things with wings and no intelligence?"

"Aside from the no intelligence part, all of that sounds familiar. Are you saying they're an issue?"

"Not so much of an issue as much as they are a constant annoyance. They always come back soon after you kill them, so you can't really ever be rid of them!"

Neolect processed the information for a bit. "Ah, so like cockroaches."

"Yeah, imagine a cockroach that shoots lasers."

"Thanks for the warning."

The puppet wolf continued descending into the earth, carefully navigating down steep ledges and sometimes using his built-in rocket boosters to slow the fall from a massive jump. He had been lucky that he hadn't had to fight yet, but that was soon to change.

After entering a large cave clearing, Neolect noticed a large swarm of fairies. Unfortunately, they noticed him too.

"Nitori, are these the fairies you were talking about?"

"Yep. Good luck!"

Several of the fairies launched an energy bullet towards Neolect at once. He quickly leapt up from his current position, letting the bullets impact the ground harmlessly. The back of the wolf opened up, and a turret mechanism equipped with a .50 caliber anti-materiel rifle popped out. Processing thousands of ballistics calculations in a matter of milliseconds, the gun aimed at one of the fairies and shot, taking it out in a single shot. The other fairies, seeing their comrade fall, redoubled their efforts to disassemble the wolf. They fired another wave of bullets at Neolect, with some of the larger ones firing a stream of bullets in a helix pattern. The advanced AI had no problem keeping track of all the incoming projectiles and weaved through them fluidly and seemingly without effort. As the fairies continued their onslaught, so did Neolect. Shortly, the fairy swarm was now just a measly group of 6-8. This group, realizing how outmatched they were, flew away deep into the cave. The gun retracted back into the wolf's frame as Neolect continued navigating further into the cave.

"Well, Nitori, I can see how these things would get annoying pretty quickly."

"Indeed. They're part of the reason I built this bunker as sturdy as I did."

Neolect was taken aback. "Do these things appear everywhere, not just in the caves?"

"Oh yeah. That, and the fact that they never die, and you've got a perfect recipe for a pest you'll never be free from."

"I see."

After a bit more navigating, Neolect spotted something interesting. It was a humanoid creature, but not a fairy. The creature wore a largely brown dress, with a brown ribbon on its head. Wrapped around its dress were several long ribbon-like things that seemed to serve no practical purpose. Lastly, Neolect noted that the creature had blond hair.

"Nitori, is this humanoid aggressive like the fairies?"

"Hmm… I mean, she did attack Marisa when she was headed down this path, but honestly I think that was Marisa's fault, so you're probably fine. Just walk by."

"Noted."

Neolect attempted to just pass by the humanoid, but she caught sight of him. She looked like she wanted to come closer, but she didn't for an unknown reason. Either way, Neolect could tell she had no ill intentions.

"Hello human or humanoid creature. I am Neolect. Please respond with your name."

The creature was startled that the strange metallic dog could talk. "Oh, um, hello! I'm Yamame! I'm a tsuchigumo. What kind of youkai are you?"

Neolect responded, "I am not a youkai, I am an artificial intelligence controlling a robotic body."

Yamame was confused. "What's an 'artificial intelligence?'"

"Oh, right," he noted to himself. "Apparently the level of tech I'm used to with Nitori is an unusual thing."

Neolect decided to put it aside. "Don't worry about it for now. Anyways, so you're a spider youkai? You certainly don't look the part."

The spider youkai said, "Maybe not, but I got the webs and stuff!" To demonstrate, she launched a thick strand of spider silk from her hand to the cave ceiling.

"Fascinating!" Neolect noted out loud. He wished to see if the silk was real, so he approached Yamame to get a closer look.

"Waitwaitwait! Uh, if you're not a youkai, you might want to stay away from me!"

"Why is that?"

"Well, my main power is that I can control diseases, so I've got all the worst ones. If you get too close you'll probably be infected!"

"Don't worry, I'll be fine," Neolect assured her. "I'm not a form of biological life, so viruses and bacteria have absolutely no effect on me."

Yamame really didn't know what he was talking about, but decided to trust his judgement. The mechanical wolf was now right next to Yamame, and was studying the strand of spider silk.

"Interesting. This is, in fact, real spider silk. So, Yamame, how much energy did it take to make this strand?"

"Eh? Oh, like, none at all. I can easily make hundreds of these!"

"I'm impressed, Yamame. That means you could easily produce much more silk than our spider silk goats. If you were ever in the outside world, the business opportunities would be endless! Spider silk is always in short supply, and is super useful for construction!"

Yamame was quite confused. "Wait hold on, slow down. Spider silk goats?"

Neolect chuckled. "We genetically modified goats to produce spider silk."

Despite commanding some of the worst diseases known to man, the spider youkai found that somewhat disgusting. "That's super gross and weird."

"And that's the legal genetic experimentation. Wait until you hear about the kind of stuff that happens behind closed doors…"

The spider and the wolf continued their chat for a while. Neolect was still enthralled by the abilities of Yamame's spider silk, while Yamame was fascinated by Neolect's information on various outside world pandemics. She had heard of some of them before, but the newer ones were quite interesting.

"Well, our talk has been enlightening, Yamame, but I must continue my journey."

"Oh, where you going?"

"I'm on my way to some place marked as 'The Palace of the Earth Spirits.'"

"I think that's somewhere in Former Hell. Do you need someone to guide you?"

"While I don't think I need help with directions, I could probably use the help of someone who knows much more about this place than I do."

"Alright, sounds good! I'm also not half bad in a fight either."

"If those fairies are considered nuisances, I can imagine you'd be much stronger. Excellent."

With +1 partner, Neolect descended further and made it to a place that was visibly different than the prior cave system. It maintained the dampness, but visibility was higher for some reason. It was like there was something deeper in the cave emitted light. Neolect didn't have much time to process this new information, though, as another swarm of fairies made themselves known.

Neolect's anti-materiel rifle once again exited his back, and Yamame began to levitate. He noticed that a large circle that contained various symbols was spinning behind her back. Paying it no mind for now, Neolect began taking out fairies one shot at a time. Yamame raised her hand, and a vast amount of energy bullets were created, forming what could almost be described as a web pattern. Any fairies caught in this bullet formation fell after a barrage of hits. With two capable fighters working together, the fairy swarm fell much faster than the last one.

"Wow…" Yamame mused. "Those are some pretty powerful danmaku bullets. They killed the fairies in one shot! Usually it takes more hits to do that."

Neolect responded, "Most things die from one .50 caliber shot. I'm impressed with the sheer amount of projectiles you could make, though. That's suppressive fire that not even a minigun could match."

"I don't know what a minigun is, but making this many bullets is normal around here. Have you never seen a spell card duel before?"

"I can't say I have."

"Weird. Basically everyone from around here has seen or heard of them!"

Neolect communicated with Nitori. "It seems you left a pretty important piece of information out of your summary of how Gensokyo works."

Nitori was slightly embarrassed. "How on earth did I forget to tell you about spell card battles!?"

"Hey, Neolect, who ya talking to?"

"Oh, yeah, this is a friend of mine, Nitori. She found me and has been helping me find my footing in this new world."

Something clicked for Yamame. "Oh, right, you're from the outside world. I almost forgot that! That would explain why you've never heard of spell card battles."

Neolect told Nitori, "When I get back, I think I'll need you to explain this 'spell card' thing to me."

Nitori, somewhat flustered, replied, "Yeah I know, I'll explain in great detail later!"

With that, the duo of robot and spider travelled further through the cave, approaching whatever it was deeper in the cave that was producing so much light. Before they could make it to the light source, however, they came across a bridge. Standing on their end was a single humanoid, which Neolect reasonably assumed was a youkai. Like Yamame, she had blond hair, but the similarities largely ended there. Her dress was a much more colorful design, containing browns, whites, and blues. Neolect could also tell that she seemed quite upset about something. He could also tell that his partner, Yamame, was quite nervous.

"Yamame, something seems problematic. What is it?"

"Crap! I was hoping she wouldn't be here!"

"Who, her?"

"Yes, her! That's Parsee! She guards the bridge, and she's jealous of everyone! She can't be reasoned with, and she's stronger than I am! There's no way I could beat her in a fight…"

Neolect noted to himself that this "Parsee" individual could be problematic. "I think we should try to communicate with her, but if that goes wrong, I have a back-up plan. Nitori, did you make the ammo for the grenade launcher like I asked?"

Nitori responded, "Yes, I did, but how will that help? The explosion isn't strong enough to severely hurt a human, let alone someone like her!"

If Neolect was capable of smirking, he would have been doing it in this moment. "Don't worry, you'll see."

The duo approached the bridge and were stopped by Parsee. "Hey! Spider and metal dog, what do you want in the Former Capital?"

Neolect responded, "I have business to attend to in the Palace of the Earth Spirits. She is my guide."

Even at such a small comment, Parsee was visibly upset. "You have business there, huh? That means you're allowed to go to the Capital! I'm jealous that you get to go there!"

The AI was confused. "Are you not allowed there or something?"

"Of course not, I'm too dangerous or something. There's no way I'm going to let someone like you through either! I've never seen a youkai like you before, metal dog. I don't like the energy you give off!"

Yamame sighed deeply. "See?"

Neolect was equally exasperated. "Well, it was worth an attempt I suppose."

The two walked away from the bridge to talk for a moment. "So," Yamae asked, "what's your backup plan?"

Neolect's side opened up, and a turret with a grenade launched came out. "I'm gonna do something to blind her. Stay here until you hear a loud 'bang.' When that happens, rush in and cover her with as many webs as possible. After that, we make a run for it."

Immediately following that, Neolect reapproached Parsee, grenade launcher armed and ready. With a "shunk," a thin grenade was launched towards Parsee. Confused, she picked it up. Suddenly, it burst into a glorious flash of light and a deafening burst. Parsee screamed out. "AAAAAAH, DAMN YOU METAL DOG, WHY CAN'T I SEE OR HEAR ANYTHING?!" On cue, Yamame exited cover and launched net after net of webs onto Parsee. With that goal accomplished, Neolect and Yamame got past Parsee and ran down the bridge as quickly as their superhuman speeds would let them. Parsee, recovering from the flash, realized she was completely entombed by webs, and that the spider and the wolf were too far gone to give chase to. "DAMN IT! Next time I see those two I swear…"

Yamame and Neolect finished crossing the bridge, being greeted by what seemed to be the entrance to a subterranean city. They took a moment to recuperate after their encounter with Parsee.

"Wow, what was that explosion you caused? I've never heard something quite so loud… except maybe Marisa's Master Spark."

"Ah, you encountered Marisa too, I see. Anyways, that's a flashbang. A grenade made to stun an opponent instead of killing them."

"That's weird. Usually people don't use that type of tactic here. Blinding your opponent would mean that they can't see the bullet patterns you've spent so much time developing."

Neolect almost asked about that, but decided that could wait. After all, they had found a city underground.

"So, Yamame, where are we now?"

Yamame gestured towards the city, and said, "Welcome to Former Hell."

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Author's Notes: Here's another chapter of my Touhou fanfic! I was going to make this a lot sooner, but life happened and it took me a while. Anyways, the most common suggestion for my story was to make my chapters longer, so here we are!

I quite like spiders, so I think Yamame's pretty fun. I also like how friendly the wiki says she is, so I decided to make her a partner for this quest!

As I'm sure you can tell, this isn't just a two-part chapter set. All of the chapters in this arc will be labeled this way.

Hope you enjoyed this chapter! I hope you have a great day.