Chapter 13

The Truth

Reimu, having been sent flying by the shattering of her barrier, goes through something none of the outsiders had ever seen before, but which causes Alex to sigh with relief. It is a purple portal, full of eyes. At the same time, Rumia, whose inhibitor was knocked off when Alexis kicked her, wakes up. Alex's kneecap repairs itself, as do Ran's ribs and Chen's stomach. Another gap opens, and out of it walk Keine and Yukari. Combat ceases as the formerly crippled Gensokyoans get back up.

"What the hell did you do, demon?" Alexis says viscously.
"I simply manipulated the boundary between injured and healthy. Quite simple, if you understand it." Yukari says. The area grows dark, and malicious laughing is heard from where the little blond girl last was. "Thank you for removing her inhibitor, by the way. I thought I would have more time once the battle started." Yukari says, joining the laughter herself.
"You'll pay for killing our leader, monster!" Touko's team yells.
"Is that so?" RIP!
"GYAAHHH! MY ARM! SHE RIPPED MY FU-"
Squelch. "It's not polite to use words like that, young one." Thud.
A laser rifle is fired. "I'll kill you, yo-"
RIP! "Say hello to your friends for me, it was fun to play with them." Thud.

Whirr. Alexis's right eye switches to night vision. Dammit! I thought she looked familiar. Alexis thinks. Switching her cybernetic eye back to normal vision, she flashes it brightly for a second.
"My eyes!" As everyone's eyes readjust to the normal lighting, they see a woman with blond hair and a black ballgown, stained with blood, near the corpses of Touko's team. The woman is clutching her eyes, obviously pained by the bright light. One of the corpses is missing its right arm, and has a large hole in its chest. The other is simply headless.

"FIRE!" Gilgamesh yells, and his team all shoot at Rumia. A gap opens in front of her, and the lasers enter it. Another gap opens under Rumia, taking the injured youkai to safety. A horn blares, and Gilgamesh barely dives to the side in time to avoid the train that flattens his unfortunate teammates. Alexis jumps at Yukari, swinging her sword-arm, which Yukari deflects with her parasol. The gap youkai crushes the time-traveler's neck with her fan, however there is a mechanical whirring, and her neck fixes itself.

Mirielle's team fires at Keine, who sidesteps. There is an explosion under one of Mirielle's teammates, sending her pieces into the air. Resisting the urge to vomit, Alex fires the second rocket at Mirielle. She shoots it out of the air near him, causing it to explode and knock him down. Keine fires a burst of bullets, then follows up with a laser aimed at Mirielle's other teammate. The UNSRFGOU soldier dodges the laser, but in the process, jumps into a bullet, which pierces his chest, killing him.

Ran, realizing the other outsiders must not have the same enhancements as Alexis, rushes at Chaz and Gilgamesh, masterfully dodging their shots. Chen fires multiple curving Danmaku bursts around the two soldiers, preventing them from simply running from the fox-woman. Ran rips Gilgamesh's face off with wickedly sharp claws, then turns to face Chaz, before getting shot in the back by Battery. "Thanks for the assist!" Chaz says, shooting Ran in the head. She collapses.
"Miss Ran!" Chen screams. She unleashes a massive wall of Danmaku that annihilates Chaz, leaving no body, before collapsing from exhaustion.

Alex runs over to Chen, now holding a shield again. With said shield, he blocks most of Battery's lasers, and the others simply miss. Battery, thinking that the once human is still human, charges the man. Battery kicks Alex hard in the gut, fully expecting the scrawny teenager to break in half right there. What happens instead is that Battery breaks his own leg against the now-youkai. "FUCK!" Battery yells, falling to the ground.
"Look, I really don't want to kill you. I'm a teacher, for fuck's sake. I've already gotten used to the idea of living here, as much as someone can, anyway. Yeah, it sucks I'll never see my parents or my old friends again, but shit happens. So, if you could just surrender, or something, that would be really nice. I know you aren't bad people, and I hope that you can see we're not bad people either. Yukari just took me here because I was going to do something stupid that would cause… well, this. We don't mean any harm to the rest of the world; we just want to live our lives here in peace. Please, sir, just stop fighting so I don't need to hurt anyone anymore." Alex tells the man, crying while holding a knife to his throat. Battery grits his teeth, but sets his gun on the ground and pushes it away. "Thank you so much." Alex says. He gets up and disappears the knife. Alex goes over to help Keine.

Alex tries to sneak up on Mirielle, who is busy dodging lasers and bullets from Keine, to knock her out with his bokkun. Mirielle hears him, turns, and puts a laser through his heart. He collapses, covering the wound with his hand. A furious Keine charges the soldier and smashes her head into the French woman's, knocking Mirielle unconscious. "Alex! Are you okay?" Keine says, flustered.
"I guess it's because I'm part sword now, but I don't feel like I'm dying, and that's good, right?" Alex says with a weak chuckle.
"Yeah, youkai are far more resistant to damage, so, this shouldn't kill you." Keine says, despite not looking too sure of this herself. Alex loses consciousness.

"I wonder," Yukari says, deflecting Alexis's attack with her parasol, "Have you ever stopped to consider why we might have attacked the outside world in your time?"
"Because you're monsters that delight in killing people." Alexis says, smacking away the parasol that was about to stab her in the eye.
"I see. I must ask you, if that is the case, then why did I not attack the instant I knew you were coming for us? Or a broader question; why does human civilization still exist now?" Yukari says, deflecting the chainsword again.
"To the first; because you needed time to prepare. To the second; because there aren't enough of you to kill everyone yet." Alexis says, slipping between a wall of kunai.
"Prepare what? Do you see any fortifications? And to the second; without your weapons and abilities, this squad would have been dead seconds after it fired at us. This is the best your military has to offer at this point, no? If they couldn't hurt us, what makes you think more people with worse equipment could?" Yukari says, sidestepping a laser that came from Alexis's mechanical eye.
Ignoring the first questions, and swatting aside a fan headed for her kidney, Alexis says "The soldiers might not have been able to hurt you, but the nukes would."
"Exactly." Yukari says, stepping back to avoid an uppercut.
This causes Alexis to pause, and to get hit in the face by a parasol. "Bitch. What do you mean, 'exactly'?" she says, deflecting the parasol that was about to strike her a second time.
"The nukes. They would devastate us. But not everyone would die, and what do you think the survivors would feel? I know you know the answer to this." Yukari says, smiling as Alexis's chainsword stops inches from her throat.

Alexis steps back, her arm dropping to her side. Her arm reverts back to normal, and she drops to the ground. She stares at the ground for a while, as if looking for any other answer to Yukari's easy question. A few minutes after the battle between the UN soldiers and the inhabitants of Gensokyo wraps up behind her, Alexis quietly says "They'd want revenge." She stares blankly for some time before asking "We did this to ourselves?"

Yukari sits beside the time-traveler, saying "No. You did nothing. The disgusting humans in this time are the ones who launch the missiles. I *ahem* overheard them speaking about the matter. The leaders of this 'UN' you have joined decided that if we couldn't be convinced to help them control the people on the outside, they would have to 'deal' with us. If you truly want to prevent a massacre in your time, you are targeting the wrong people. What you need to do is convince these leaders that they gain nothing by bombing us. You must convince them either that we are no threat, or that we are a sleeping dragon that, if woken, will tear through their lands like a heated sword through an ice fairy. I do not care which of these paths you choose, but they are the only ways to prevent the near extinction of your race. I would do it myself, but I fear that they would not listen to me."

"I…"Alexis starts, before sighing deeply, "I understand. I apologize for how I treated you. Is… Is anyone still alive?" She expects the answer to be no.
"It appears that the large man from your team has surrendered, and the French woman is simply unconscious. Everyone else from your squad is dead. Chen looks unconscious, likely from exhaustion, and Alex and Ran both have painful, but not fatal, wounds. Keine appears unharmed." Yukari says, looking over the battlefield.
"A complete loss for us, huh? At least it makes my new job easier." Alexis says with a grim laugh. Yukari tilts her head quizzically.

Alexis gets up and heads over to Battery. "Soldier, I must ask you a very important question. If given contradictory orders, whose will you follow? Mine, or the Big-un's?" she says, her face blank.
"Apologies ma'am, but the Big-un is higher in the chain of command than you. You know I need to do what they say." Battery says through gritted teeth, still in pain from his leg shattering.
"Even if the orders they give you are directly opposed to our continued survival as a species?" Alexis says.
"Even then, ma'am." Battery says.
"You're a good soldier, Anders. I'm honored to have had you serving under me." Alexis says, before stabbing her arm through Battery's neck, killing him. A few hours later, when Mirielle wakes up, Alexis repeats the questions she asked Battery, and Mirielle repeats the answers. She, too, is swiftly killed.