Random Pointless Rambling: The person who leaked the fifth generation Pokemon's Pokedex said that there will be a brand new Fairy-type in the sixth generation. Sylveon and Xerneas are both Fairy-type, while Yveltal is Dark/Flying-type. Clefairy and Togetic will become Fairy-types as well.
Chapter 8
Great Robot Wars
Shizuha and Minoriko could not believe the sight they were looking at, an army of robots that was cutting down trees as they moved forward. "Those robots… Their design is exactly the same as the one I fought yesterday!" Shizuha pointed out.
"There are more of them?!" Minoriko said.
When the robots noticed the two sisters, they put their focus on Shizuha, and then the "Cut down trees" text seen in the lower-left corner of their visions changed to "Engage major enemy". Raising their chainsaws into the air, the robots ran in their direction, not caring about the trees and only cutting them if they were in the way.
"Are they coming for us?!" Minoriko asked.
Shizuha looked around to see if there was anything the robots were going after. "I don't know, but I do have the feeling that they are indeed coming for us…"
When the robot got closer to them, the two goddesses quickly turned to run. Being the faster runner, Shizuha took the lead while holding Minoriko's hand so that the latter wouldn't get left behind. They both ran as fast they could and turned back to look a couple of times to see if the robots were catching up. Eventually, they ran out of the woods and headed for the river up ahead.
The goddesses flew across to the other side of the river, and then they landed and turned around to see the robots stopping at the bank. "Guess they can't cross over to this side," Shizuha said.
"Makes sense, considering that most machines don't mix well with water," Minoriko said.
To their surprise, however, wings powered by flames came out from the robots' backs, and they used it to cross the river. "WHAT?!" the sisters gasped.
The robots landed all around the sisters and surrounded them, and Minoriko held her hands around Shizuha's arm in fear. "Why… Why are they after us…?" the younger sister asked. "We only just met them, but they look like they want us dead!"
"Seeing how they look just like the one I destroyed, I wouldn't be surprised if they're after me to avenge it," Shizuha said. "Looks like I got on the bad side of whoever is behind this… Minoriko, you get out of here. I'm responsible for letting this happen, so I'll deal with this myself!"
"Don't push yourself, sis!" Minoriko told her. "I won't leave you behind! Because they're after you, I have even more reason to stay behind and help you! I'm better in danmaku than you are, so I'll definitely be of help here! Combined with your close quarter combat skills, we can surely take down all of them!"
One of the robots ran forward and thrust its chainsaw at Shizuha. The goddess quickly shoved her younger sister away for the sake of her safety and then moved her body to the side in the nick of time to avoid getting hit by the chainsaw. She quickly caught by the robot by its arm and then slammed its elbow from above hard using her own to bend it in a way it shouldn't be bending before flinging it away by the arm.
Minoriko turned to the robots at the front and magically produced a pair of sweet potatoes in her hand. "Sweet Potato Bombs!" She flung it at two of the robots, but they sliced it in half with their chainsaws. However, the sliced halves flew sideways and exploded when they hit the ground and other robots, blasting away the latter.
Seeing that Minoriko attacked them, the robots saw her as a threat and so headed in her direction to engage her. The goddess of harvest wasn't afraid of them, however. She raised her hands into the air and shouted, "Wrath of the Wheats!" Then she slammed them onto the ground to make wheats grow out from underneath the robots in front of her. The wheats wrapped themselves around the robot so tightly that they were unable to move.
While the robots were bounded in place, Minoriko pointed her arms at them and fired multiple yellow beams out of her palms. "Plenty Sign: Owotoshi Harvester!" When the beams struck the robots, the wheats binding them were broken into pieces, and the robots themselves fell back onto the ground.
After dodging a chainsaw from a robot, Shizuha struck the latter across the face several times with the sides of her hands. She then kicked it away in the abdomen. Another robot tried to hit from the side, but she quickly bent back her body to avoid getting hit by its chainsaw. Quickly grabbing its arm, she flung the robot at some other robots, but then the ones that avoided getting hit by it charged at her after that.
Shizuha performed a spinning jump over them when they got close and then threw several leaves at their back while still in the air, embedding them into their backs, but it wasn't enough to make them malfunction. When she landed, two robots standing on both sides of her attacked with their flamethrowers. The goddess quickly ducked and then approached the one on her right at a fast speed to hit its feet with a leg sweep to knock it to the ground. After that, she rolled out from underneath the flamethrower of the other robot and charged at it before it could turn to her and sent it flying with a roundhouse kick.
That robot got sent flying into shallow water, and the goddess expected it to short-circuit. However, the robot stood back up as if it was unaffected by the water. Shizuha looked around to see that most of the robots she thought she and her sister destroyed were still getting back up. "Are they more durable than the one I encountered or what?" she wondered.
Minoriko stood back to back against her and said, "I may not have seen you fight that one, but I do agree that these things are pretty tough to take down…"
Shizuha looked around and analyzed the situation they were in before saying, "We should retreat for now. We're clearly outmatched here." With that, she swung her hands to the sides very fast to whip up strong wind and a large amount of leaves that quickly filled the air and blocked the robots' view of them. When the wind died down and the leaves settled onto the ground, the sisters were gone, so the robots looked around to find them.
The goddesses didn't run far, however, but the robots didn't look hard enough to find them. They were up in the air, flying back in the direction they ran from. "We should go and tell the science department about this, though I think they should know about this by now," Shizuha suggested.
"Sis! There's something up front!" Minoriko said all of a sudden. Shizuha looked at the front and saw the three larger robots flying in their direction. Because the three were flying in their direction, the two goddesses quickly dropped altitude so that those three flew over them.
The three robots flew across the river and landed among the group of twenty robots there, and then together with them, they headed for the trees at the front to start cutting them. "Why are those robots cutting down the trees?!" Minoriko asked. "What do they have against them?! It's as if they really hate trees!"
After hearing the last part of what Minoriko said, Shizuha suddenly realized something. "Hate trees! Can it really be Akemi…? Is she really the one behind those robots?"
"What do we do, sis?" Minoriko desperately asked her older sister. "We can't let them go and cut down all the trees! Trees benefit people in various ways and make the world look more beautiful!"
"We can't stop them by ourselves either, so the only thing we can do now is tell the science department about this," Shizuha replied.
"But do you know where to find the lab?" Minoriko said. "I heard that there are multiple entrances hidden all around Youkai Mountain and on it, but I never found any of them…"
"I never found any of them myself either…" Shizuha said. "I seriously have no idea… I think the best we can do now is to look for Nitori. Looking for her shouldn't be hard, assuming that she's not in the lab currently…"
"Shizuha! Minoriko!" shouted a familiar-sounding voice. The goddesses turned and saw Nitori, Evil Eye Omega, and several white wolf tengus flying in their direction, and the former was using a jet pack to fly.
The group stopped in front of the sisters, and Minoriko said to Nitori, the person who called out to them, "Nitori! We were just thinking of looking for you! Good thing you came here yourself!"
"Did you see three large robots flying past here?" Nitori asked.
"I can see them over there!" the squad leader of the white wolf tengus said while pointing at the robots in the distance.
"Good! They haven't gone far!" Rika said from inside Evil Eye Omega. "We have to stop them before they cut down way too many trees!"
"What's happening, Nitori?" Shizuha asked the kappa. "What exactly are those robots?"
"We don't have exact confirmation yet, but it seems very likely that Akemi is responsible for all of them," Nitori replied.
"Akemi! I knew it!" the goddess of red leaves said. "I should've known that she's the one behind this when Keine told me that she seems to hate plants and the fact that the robots are cutting down trees!"
"We were too busy dealing with the larger robots back in the lab that we forgot about her," Nitori said. "However, it seems that dealing with those robots is the priority now, so we'll deal with her later."
"Before you go, can you tell me where one of the entrances to the lab is?" Shizuha asked Nitori. "I want to confront Akemi myself."
"You want to? I'm not sure if it's all right to tell people not part of the science department about this, but seeing how we need help handling things currently… Anyway, there's one in the clearing not too far away from here. It's at the western part of the mountain. If the entrance has closed off, then all you have to do is kick the four rocks found at the four corners of the clearing to reveal it."
"Okay, got it!" Shizuha said with a nod.
"If we're done, then let's go and destroy those robots now!" Rika impatiently said.
"Right! Let's go now!" Nitori said. "C'mon, everyone!" With the exception of the sisters, all the others flew in the direction of the robots.
The goddesses watched as they went to engage the robots, and then Shizuha headed in the direction of the clearing. "I'm heading over to the lab at once to find Akemi," Shizuha told her younger sister. "Since she's behind this, we'll have to convince her to put an end to it."
"I'm with you, sis!" Minoriko told her.
It didn't take long for them to find the clearing Nitori told them about. When they got there, they didn't see anything peculiar, but remembering what Nitori said, the sisters went to kick the rocks at the four corners of the clearing. After they each kicked two, they were surprised at the sight of the clearing slowly moving downwards like an elevator. "Wow! Cool!" Minoriko commented.
The clearing descended for several seconds before finally coming to a stop, and then the wall in front of them slowly slid up to reveal a short passage that led into the lab, so they headed in there. The workers present were surprised that someone who had never been seen in the lab before showing up, but they knew who they were.
"It's the autumn goddesses!"
"How did they discover the clearing's entrance?!"
"What are they doing here?"
Shizuha looked around and then asked a nearby fairy, "Have you seen Akemi? I need to find her fast!"
The fairy shook her head. "Nope, I haven't seen her all day yet, but I heard that she's responsible for killing a white wolf tengu guard and making robots attack this place. We're actually looking for her now."
"She killed a white wolf tengu…? I can't believe it…" Minoriko said in horror.
"Actually, I saw where she went to," a kappa standing not too far away said, and then everyone turned to look at her. "Some time ago, I saw her heading in the direction of the hangar. However, I wasn't told that we were supposed to be looking for her that time yet, so I didn't stop her…"
"Take me there!" Shizuha told her. "There's a large amount of robots cutting down trees up there, and Nitori and the white wolf tengus are fighting them at the moment. Since Akemi is likely behind this, we'll have to convince her to stop this madness!"
"All right! I'll take you to the hangar!" the kappa said, and then she led the way for the sisters.
When they arrived at the hangar, they witnessed in time a plane starting its engine and heading in the direction of a passage. "Hey! There shouldn't be anything taking off from here during this time!" the kappa said.
"That must be her!" Shizuha said, and then she ran after the plane.
"Sis! It may be dangerous! Don't go!" Minoriko shouted at her.
"There's no time to lose! I must stop her before she escapes!" Shizuha replied.
The goddess used flight to travel faster and followed the plane into the passage. She saw the plane stopping at a dead end, and then light started to pour in from above. Shizuha stopped behind the plane and looked up to see that the ceiling was opening to reveal the sky, and when it was fully open, the plane started to float into the air. Acting quick, Shizuha jumped at its left wing and climbed onto it.
The plane came out from the underground and flew high into the sky. "Everything's going fine so far!" Akemi said while piloting the plane. "Before I get started, let's see what my robots are doing."
With a powerful punch to the body, the bulky mechanical arms that were a part of the mechanical backpack Nitori was carrying managed to send the robot with arm cannons flying back several feet. "Ha! How'd you like that?" Nitori said while one arm punched the other arm's palm. "I recently finished this Mecha-Pack, and thanks to you guys, I'm able to use it in a real fight!"
The robot got back up and then shot streams of fire from its arm cannons at her. The kappa quickly leaped out of the way. When she landed, the mechanical arms quickly retracted into the backpack, and in place of them appeared two divided parts of a cannon that fused together in front of her body. A thick pipe also came out from the front of her backpack and went into the river, and then Nitori grabbed hold of the lone handle behind the cannon. When the robot aimed its arm cannon at Nitori, she pulled the handle to fire a huge blast of water that instantly doused the fire and pushed the robot backwards at a fast speed. "Hyper Water Blaster!"
SPLAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAASH!
Evil Eye Omega fired rapidly at the robot with chainsaw arms using energy blasts, but the latter managed to deflect the shots with its chainsaws while moving in on the former. "Not bad," Rika said from inside her ride. "Looks like I'll have to use stronger firepower!"
Missiles launchers came out from the shoulders of Evil Eye Omega and fired missiles at the robot, but the latter managed to destroy them with its chainsaws before running at Evil Eye Omega. Rika's robot swung its arms to the sides to make blades charged with electricity come out from its wrists, and then it ran at the approaching robot to engage it up close.
While Nitori and Rika handled the two large ones, the white wolf tengus fought the smaller ones and the one with axe hands.
The white wolf tengus were highly skilled fighters, so the robots, while durable, were no match for their skills, thus they were slowly taken out one by one. It was the large one that they were having a problem with, as its exterior was too hard for their swords to go through, and its strength were a match for their natural strength, too.
While the battle raged on between the robots and the "beings of flesh", something suddenly dropped onto the center of the battlefield with such a force that quite a bit of dust was sent flying into the air. This caused everyone to stop fighting and turn to look at what just fell down. The dust slowly cleared away to reveal Aya, who was standing back up and adjusting her hat. "Guess the entrance was too dramatic, eh?" she asked while looking around.
The sound of coughing was also heard coming from next to her, and then Reimu stood up while dusting herself. "Man, Aya! Did you have to do that?! Dragging me out of my shrine and pulling me all the way here without my consent first!" the shrine maiden angrily said.
"Well, the situation looks bad, so I thought I should hurry up and bring you here," Aya told her. "Fine… I apologize for being in such a rush…"
Reimu looked around and saw the robots. "So these are the ones causing trouble, eh? Did you have to bring me here, seeing how the white wolf tengus are dealing with them already?"
"I thought it would be better if you lend a hand," Aya said to her. "After all, you're the master of solving incidents, so you should be able to get this resolved in a jiffy!"
"Yeah, yeah… Long answer short: you people can't solve incidents without me…" Reimu grumbled. "Fine, I'll make a short work out of these robots and then get back to taking a nap…" Then she turned to look at the one with axe hands. "I'll assume that the big ones are the leaders, right?"
Nitori watched from her location and said, "Well, looks like Aya went out of her way to bring in someone who we can trust in a fight! That's a plus for us!"
Akemi was watching the battle through a footage captured using the plane's camcorder built outside it. "Looks like they're putting up a fight against those robots pretty well," she said. "However, those robots are merely a distraction to keep them from discovering what I'm actually doing! While they're busy fighting those robots, I'm busy planting the Geothermal Triangles into different parts of Gensokyo! By the time they realized this, all plant life here will be destroyed!"
"I'm not going to let them happen!" said a voice coming from behind.
Akemi turned around in shock and saw Shizuha standing there. "What?! How and when did you…"
"Through the door… just now," the goddess interrupted.
TO BE CONTINUED
The concept for Nitori's Hyper Water Blast came from Cyborg's super move in the game Injustice: Gods Among Us.
I can't exactly remember which came first: Coming up with the idea of Minoriko using and summoning crops to fight myself or getting the inspiration for it after looking up on M.U.G.E.N. videos of her... I'm talking about before I started this story, but I did look up on M.U.G.E.N. videos for better ideas on how she could fight when working on this chapter.
Also, this chapter's title is named after Touhou 12.8's final boss theme, Great Fairy Wars ~ Fairy Wars.