Chapter 4: Little Sister of the Devil
Some minutes earlier...
After being separated from Shina, Alex kept a lax attitude about him as he followed Patchouli through the mansion's halls. She wasn't the talkative kind of person, but frankly even if she was that constant cloud of gloom over her head would've deterred him from saying anything back.
Before returning to the foyer, they made a right turn to another hall tucked away in the shadows, then kept going for a hundred feet before making another right turn. This took them to a hallway made of fancy glass that was behind the stained glass window in the throne room.
Alex tilted his head up and raised a brow, then looked back at Patchouli and continued walking. At the end of the hall she started to cough, the hoarseness in her voice making Alex think that her lungs were being assaulted by sandpaper. But right away she whipped out a vial of sorts and downed one of the pills inside. The coughing became a thing of the past, and she kept a move on without saying a word about it.
She seemed to have gained some pep in her step to boot. Instead of dragging her feet through the mud with cannonballs tied to the ankles, she was walking...like a regular, normal person. Thus, it took only a few seconds less than expected for them to round a couple more corners and end up in front of a staircase leading downwards.
"Here we are. Try not to damage anything." Patchouli poked her head back and made little effort to sound detached, then began to descend the stairs.
Alex tucked his hands into the pockets, squinted, and then slogged his way down just a couple steps behind her. Quickl getting the rhythm for the stairs down pat helped deal with how dark the corridor down was. Patchouli's lack of stumbling would make sense considering the familiarity she'd have with this area...If this was the way to her library, Alex thought.
It didn't take long for the boy to let out a sigh and tear down the masquerade in a gruff spoken single sentence, "I really hope you weren't expecting me to fall for this piss-poor excuse for a 'trap'."
Patchouli paused right on the spot before the stairs turned right and then gleamed over her shoulder with her eyelids sagging. Alex perked his head back and glared her down while saying, "You probably wouldn't even catch a rat like this."
"And yet...Here you are." The librarian snarked with an air of superiority surrounding her. She then continued her descent while prodding Alex with a simple question, "Why IS that?"
"Because I'm curious to see what exactly Remilia's planning here."
"Hmph...Where do you get off speaking like you're one of Remi's acquaintances?" Patchouli's response was just a teensy bit bitter.
"Don't flatter yourself, I'm just experienced in dealing with the childish whims of haughty little vampires."
Patchouli dug her feet into the carpet steps and twisted back, her clothes caught in a twirl as she intensely forced Alex's smugness back into his head with just her glare and said, "If you truly understood the complexity of Remi's plans, then you wouldn't even be here."
Her brows crunched down and wrinkled her forehead, making her look like a lioness defending her cubs. Alex's right hand started to shake until he clutched his fingers together, while his lips struggled to keep a smile. Patchouli's quiet fury deflated without a word as she turned back and continued walking. It took a couple seconds for Alex to kick up the pace, except now he was grinning quite a bit.
"Alright then Ms. Scarlet Devil...Lets see what you and your merry band of goons have in store for us." He decided to keep his mouth shut and play along for now, since he had every reason not to fear this place.
"I just hope Shina'll be alright by herself." Was the only thought that distracted him otherwise.
After a few more steps the two had finally reached the basement of the mansion. With Patchouli's obvious bait uncovered, Alex wasn't the least bit curious about the lack of books or anything else you'd see in a library. Instead, he zeroed in on the room's atmosphere.
It was a little darker in here than throughout the rest of the mansion. Gloomy, forboding, lonely, those were just a few of the words he could use to describe the place. It was the perfect atmosphere for a vampire, but not one of Remilia's taste. The worst of it was that Alex could find only one thing that suggested someone could actually stand to live here, and that was a single, round, queen-sized bed covered in fresh sheets. But he'd be damned if it wasn't the fanciest bed he'd ever seen before.
The sheets were crimson with gilded gold edges that had to have been woven with finesse by a goddess, and the see-through blood red drapes around and above the bed were attached without even an inch of misalignment. For all the ways this room resembled a prison, it was also respected like the throne room for a princess.
"Well, try not to get too broken up." Patchouli was gone just as quickly as she arrived, leaving the boy with a remark meant to rile him up. Though instead he just rolled his eyes and threw caution to the wind by walking to the center of the room.
"Ok, I know who lives here." He wanted to say their name but felt that'd be unwarranted, given the circumstances that brought him here.
"So...why her Remilia?" Closing his eyes and grumbling aloud for a bit, Alex tried to delve into the depths of Remilia's mind and plunder just what the curiously curious vampire would want out of splitting them apart.
"Hello...?" The pleasant and quiet voice of a little girl surprised him from behind. He glanced over the shoulder and then turned around with a couple steps, finding the girl standing up to his waist with a broken up brown teddy bear nestled against her chest by a pair of pale, frail arms.
The girl's red tinted eyes showed no fear, but a natural child-like curiosity. Her dress was red with a vest and a pink shirt underneath. It was simple in its fanciness, just like her sister's. And like her sister, she also wore a mob cap, but hers was pink with a red ribbon. Her hair was a fair blonde shade and tied up in a single ponytail sticking out from the left of her head. However, the most striking detail that separated her from her sister and indeed most other vampires, was her wings. They weren't that of a nocturnal predator who stalked their prey with an ear-bleeding screech. No, they were instead like a pair of shaven Christmas tree branches, each decorated with a set of seven different colored crystal ornaments.
Alex tensed up for a couple seconds as he looked this child in the eyes. As a vampire, she had no presence to speak of. But not like that stopped Remilia, Alex thought. This girl simply had no ambition, no charisma, she was as pure and innocent as a child could come, and that teddy bear she kept on her was the wall dividing that pure child from her frightening vampiric nature. Yet, the boy could not shake off this unnerving grip the girl's gaze had on him.
"Why are you down here?" She asked, remaining courteous but spicing up her tone with a sudden hint of bluntness.
"Ah, I think I get it now..." Alex closed his eyes and forces himself to accept the role Remilia had assigned for him in this little play she's haphazardly strung together.
"I'm here to 'play' with you." He responded, and the girl's eyes perked up with excitement.
"Play? You're here to play?" Her wings started to flutter, and her body quivered. She lowered her head and grinned, but nothing about it seemed pleasant on her part.
"Hehehe...You're odd. Are you really human, like the red-white?"
"Of course I am. Haven't you ever seen a male before?" Alex joked.
"No." Her reply was expected and yet still a little sad to hear, yet the pity Alex felt for her was undercut by what she said next.
"But...you're looking at me with a lot of 'eyes'. Could you tell your 'eyes' to stop? Cause...cause if you don't..." The girl's grin started to squirm with delectable madness as she pulled her right hand away from the bear and raised it towards Alex's chest. Her fingers parted but quickly curled, as though she wanted to grab hold of something and squeeze.
With his heart starting to race, Alex reached for the stone in his right pocket as a very, very loud sets of sirens blared in his head, "The power to instantly destroy anything...What the hell's she aiming that at me for?"
The trembling of her hand worsened and she started to grit her teeth and struggle with herself. Then, right as the fingers clasped together, she threw her hand down and squeezed the chest of the teddy bear. With a non-discreet popping sound, the bear's head flew right off along with its legs, spilling cotton all over the top of her shoes.
As the head plopped and rolled onto the ground between them, Alex eased up and pulled his hand out, while the girl went quiet and returned to a more pleasant demeanor, complete with a sincere apology, "I'm sorry odd person...I almost broke you before we got to play."
Alex closed his eyes and started to feel some strange sense of connection to this lonely little vampire, and that comfortableness got him to loosen up and tell her, "Cut it out with that 'odd person' stuff...You want my name? Its Alex...Alex Whiter."
"Ah-lecks...Whiter?" She had some trouble pronouncing the name, but made an effort to repeat it to herself quietly a few times before shaking her head and playfully telling him, "I'll just keep calling you...'odd person'!"
"You snarky little..." Alex grumbled before deciding to just chalk up her behavior as simple social immaturity. With a sigh he then got on his knees and put the teddy bear's head in his hand. Looking into the empty button eyes filled him with a sense of loss and longing, so he nudged the head around and swiftly looked up at the rest of the bear.
"Here, give it to me, I'll patch it right up." He then waved his other hand up and watched as the girl tilted her head.
"You will? Really?" She looked down at the mangled state of her teddy bear and murmured, "Sakuya always does it...She has such a delicate touch with her knitting."
She then stared at the boy and asked, "Are...you really a male?"
"Just hand it over before I change my mind!" Alex demanded with an ornery twitch in his eyebrows. Once the girl was compliant in his request, Alex crossed his legs and swept the pieces of the bear onto his lap. He then whipped up a sewing needle and some string out of thin air from his palm and propped the bear's body against his stomach.
The curious little vampire stared in awe and cuddled her hands together at the waist. Alex made every stitch with care around the bear's neck, all while tucking the loose cotton back in. He didn't make a peep, even as he breathed, and soon he has halfway done.
Then the girl sat down and continued to watch, tucking her wings in and keeping her hands flat on the ground. Alex's swiveled the bear around to continue his delicate work, undisturbed even as the girl inquired to him, "Why are you doing this?"
He kept his eye on the needle and weaved the thread through the fibers of the bears, a true master of his craft. The girl blinked a bit and then nudged her head closer, waving her hand in front of the boy's face. He didn't even blink.
"A stuffed animal? Why would you need something that childish? Don't ya get it? You're a big boy now, son."
Alex's hand and right eye twitched, and the needle went just that little bit off course to nick the tip of his left thumb. Registering the bleeding as little worse than a feather poke, he rubbed his thumb against the palm and continued working.
The girl pulled back and poked a fang out through her smiling face, curiously inquiring all to herself, "I wonder...are you just the scraps that big sister threw away?"
"...Scraps? Scraps?" Alex broke character with a gruff chuckle, though at least he made sure to finish the stitching on the head before he laughed and said in a gravely offended tone, "Give me a break...I'm no damn table scraps, I'm at least an entree, or a goddamn main course!"
Shaking his head and continuing to grumble about scraps, he started to work on the bear's legs. This went by faster due to their smaller size, though the cotton did struggle a bit to stay in the body. When he was done, he flicked the needle away and held the bear up by its sides.
He looked at it for a few more seconds and then closed his eyes as he handed it off to the vampire with a confident, "There, all fixed."
The girl snatched the bear right up and squeezed it tight with a smile that could melt glaciers. Alex wanted to smile too, but something about that just felt...empty.
"Well, well..."
"GAH!" Alex stood right onto his feet and turned around to meet Sakuya face-to-face, his heart threatening to leap out of his chest.
"Will you QUIT doing that?!" He yelled while gasping for breath.
The demure maid closed her eyes and brushed a hand up next to the face, complimenting the boy in her own crude way, "It seems you're taking to Lady Flandre pretty well. I had assumed I'd need to bring my mop and broom."
"Cute," Alex scowled with biting sarcasm, "Did Remilia send you?"
Sakuya walked around Alex and knelt closer to the little vampire, brushing the stitching around the neck with a smooth glide of the hand. Then she looked up and asked, "Is everything going ok, young mistress?"
"Hehehe, is this odd person one of big sister's new pets? Cause I wanna keep him..."
"No no. Actually..." Sakuya leaned in closer to Flandre's left ear and began whispering. Alex raised his brows and tried to listen in, but the maid swiftly stood up and started to reach into her right pocket.
Flandre's eyes sparkled with wonderment, leaving Alex even more curious to know what Sakuya told her. Flapping her wings to somehow manage levitation, the little vampire could barely contain her excitement as she said, "Ok, I want to play with him now!"
"Then allow me to give you two a bigger playground. Just be careful not to damage anything," Sakuya peered over her shoulder and said with a little more snide in her voice, "And that-"
"Goes double for me, yeah yeah, your librarian already gave me the business. Just..." Alex swung his fingers out a couple times and forced things along, "Hurry up and do your thing."
Sakuya whipped a golden pocket watch from her pocket and held it out to the right. Through the use of some mythical mumbo-jumbo, the space in this room suddenly increased tenfold, leaving the bed far off in the south. Even though there were many logistics to question in what just happened, Sakuya disappeared before anything was asked.
Alex crossed his arms and was at a complete loss of words. It was starting to get just a TAD bit annoying that the vampire who has probably only seen a handful of humans was treating him with the most manners.
Flying right in front of his face with the teddy bear dangling down beside her, Flandre called out to him in an enticingly playful manner, "Come on! Come on! I want to play now!"
"Settle down. I've been ready this whole time." Alex kept his cool and catered to Flandre's wishes. The little vampire then zipped right on over to her bed to put the teddy bear down, patting it a couple times on the head.
Alex took the time she spent getting ready to push himself off the ground and levitate in the center of the room. He loftily pushed his right hand away from the hip and drew his sword from a wreath of embers. It was an amber schimitar with an extra fang in the center to make it better resemble a flame.
Flandre flew up until she was sixty feet away from Alex, grinning across her entire face as she had trouble fighting back the giggles, "You're going to be fun to play with odd person!"
"Hey, feel free to go wild if you want to." Alex advised without an air of concern as to the kind of hell he might be unleashing.
"Mmm...No, that's fine! I've been trying really hard to control myself lately, and I think I'm making progress?" Flandre tilted her head.
"Alright, don't say I didn't warn you." He shrugged, his recklessness breeding arrogance.
"Hehehe! But I don't need to go wild to beat you in a Spell Card duel!" Flandre tucked her arms back and smiled.
"I...beg your pardon?" Alex widened his eyes and seemed completely blind-sided.
"Sakuya said I should just use two cards to beat you. I can't wait to see what an odd person like you can do with Danmaku!" The flames of Hell erupted in a twisted, bent up line behind Flandre, summoning forth a wand with two heart-like ends that she swung out in her right hand. Extending her other hand out towards Alex, she looked ready to take on the whole world.
Flandre Scarlet ~ An Innocent Little Devil?
Caught with his pants down, Alex glanced to the left and coughed, while the swelling balloon of arrogance in his head popped.
"Shit...I forgot about those."
Flandre widened her eyes and inquired, "Ummm...are you ok mister? You look like you're having one of those 'aneurysms' Patchouli's always complaining about"
"Ghhh...I'll just have to deal with it. Besides, how hard could it be?" Alex smiled and focused back on Flandre with his sword pointed out, believing that Danmaku can be simplified down to, "Its just a fight with nothing but projectiles. If I could handle Nu, this'll be a walk in the park."
Flandre grinned and turned her left hand around, summoning a Spell Card from a small rainbow ember and positioning it between her eyes, "Ok then! Here I come...!"
She hovered the card up a little higher and squeezed her hand shut, causing it to go 'Poof!' in an instant as she called out its name, "Mesmerizing Scarlet 'Temptation of Blood'!"
Positioned in the very back of the room, Flandre flapped her wings and started off by firing a red see-through orb on both sides of her body. Each orb flew at an angle to the wall and bounced off straight towards Alex. He flew a little higher and smirked as they passed underneath, but then noticed that the orbs left behind dozens of tinier red bullets that all flew right where he had moved to.
Alex hung back and let the bullets gather close so he could dodge them all at once at the last second, but then a tangerine colored glint of light caught his eye. With another flap of the wings straight after the first, Flandre sent an orange pair of orbs northwest and southeast, where they did the same thing the first did, just without Alex being in the center of their rebound path.
But the flurry of tinier orbs came in pursuit way too soon after the first wave had even begun, meaning Alex had to fly even further distances just to avoid getting swallowed up by the barrage. His reaction was just a millisecond too late, and many of the orange bullets scraped across his back like a herd of hungry termites.
"Shit! That burns...I thought these things were supposed to be harmless?!" He grasped his sword and swung it out as he stopped back where he first started the fight. Raising it above his head in both hands he set it ablaze and thought, "Well if this is how you want to play Flandre...I'll oblige!"
He unleashed a crescent wave of flames three times as tall as he was straight at Flandre, who in response giggled as the flames encroached upon her presence and then whipped out her mighty wand Lavaetein. Holding it overhead in both hands with it wrapped up in a fifteen foot tall inferno of piercing dark red flames, Flandre swung it out with the brute force of a club and cleaved Alex's flames in twine.
At the same time, her weapon seared the very air with a mighty laser that stretched forty feet long and curved for 120 degrees, leaving behind a multitide of spearheaded red bullets. Even though it was just used to manifest her Danmaku, Alex could sense the raw power that Lavaetein wielded.
"She could easily wipe out this whole mansion if she wanted to..." A sweatdrop trickled down the side of his face and was caught on the tip of his tongue as he licked his lips. He was getting excited, and thus unattentive. The new set of bullets flew at him like a hail mary of arrows combating warriors in fuedal Japan, forcing him to sloppily scurry away.
He hastened to the back of the room, where he ended up pinned against the wall. Planting his hands against it, he flipped upside-down and watched as all the bullets crashed, turning his attention right back to Flandre after. She had already begun her next waves of Danmaku, firing a yellow pair of see-through orbs going north and south and then a green pair going northeast and southwest, and with them came all the pesky little bullets.
Alex dispelled his sword and sprung off the wall, speeding straight towards the bullets coming his way. With how fast he was moving the bullets didn't have time to correct course and overwhelm him, and on top of that there was just enough of a gap in the very center to squeeze through. Thus, he made it through with only a few bullets grazing his body.
"Who cares about a few bullets here and there...?" He halted straight upright in the center of the room and jerked both fists down near the hips, setting them on fire.
"Time for my REAL counterattack!" Alex pounded at the air with a bombardment of fists, each blow launching a fireball until a flurry of a dozen or so filled the room around Flandre. She drew Lavaetein again and swung it the same way as before, and whatever fireballs the laser didn't destroy the shockwave from the weapon put most of them out. But some connected, nudging Flandre back a few centimeters as she swept her weapon aside and began to kick her wings up at a faster pace unperturbed.
Alex panted a bit as his smoking fists limped down to his hips. Teeth grit with abounding confidence in his performance, he mumbled out to keep hyping himself up, "Yeah, this is easy...Shina just made it look-"
Flandre's fluttering wings created an unsightly scene for Alex, as she fired the see-through orbs in all eight directions in the span of a second. He dodged the orb with a slight rise, but now had to deal with the hundreds of Danmaku left behind. And there was still the matter of the bullets Lavaetein left in the air, which Alex may have neglected to remember.
"What the HE-" He didn't even have the time to curse the insanity of this deadly storm of bullets. He had to split, PRONTO. As the bullets went flying, so did he. He ran, scurrying to the bottom left edgeof the room like a cornered rat. The daggers from Lavaetein flew the fastest to his location and he flipped back to leave them impaling into the wall.
But as he landed, the dazzling display of rainbow Danmaku caught up and bombarded him. Forced to stand his ground, what he thought were pesky bug bites before now felt like a herd of tigers biting deep into the flesh. It was lucky for him that the barrage was so scatter-brained due to their being tons of bullets.
When that terrible onslaught had run its course, Alex was feeling steamed and gnashing his teeth like his hair had been set on fire. Flandre started her barrage over from the beginning without pause, but watched over Alex with her curiousity waning.
"You're not very good at this...You're gonna break if you keep this up."
Now she was pitying him, burrowing a hot dagger so deep into Alex's pride that he just simply COULD NOT ignore it. As both his eyebrows twitched with the slow closing of his eyes, the boy's hot temper manifested as actual fire around the body.
"Hooooo boy...You're REALLY asking for it now!" Alex clutched his fists until the knuckles threatened to burst through the skin. His drive to win wasn't put out, but unhealthily magnified into an inferno that consumed all other thoughts in his head.
When the next wave of see-through orbs spread their bullets his way, Alex bent and twisted his feet back and sprang straight to the center of the room, confusing the bullets' travel path. He then ignited his arms with electricity and punched straight out, his hair frizzing up as a giant bolt of lightning smashed into Flandre's body, lighting up the room in a seizure inducing flash. She then winced for a moment and drew Lavaetein for the next barrage of Danmaku.
She was genuinely enjoying herself, giggling like any other child would as she effortlessly cut a swathe of crimson through the air. Alex threw another punch and sent another lightning bolt crashing into Flandre's body as the wand finished up, pushing her a little further back.
"Ooof...! Hehehe, you really hit hard! But...I don't think this counts as Danmaku?" She had an uneasy smirk as she sent out her next wave of see-through orbs.
"I don't see why not!" Alex proclaimed, spreading his sparking right hand up and stringing a web of electricity between the fingers, "As long as I don't make physical contact, its Danmaku!"
He threw another punch and pushed ahead just enough to avoid the larger orbs. As this bolt smashed into Flandre's body, all of her present Danmaku shattered and she tumbled back into the wall. She recoiled pretty quick and shook her head, then patted her cap back into place.
Alex shorted out his arms with a flick of the wrists and then crossed them against the chest. Overflowing with confidence from every pore in his skin, the boy nudged his head up to amplify the smugness of his smirk, "Not that it'd matter either way. In any one-on-one duel, I'll always come out on top!"
"Hehehehe...!" Flandre continued to giggle for a little bit, coming off as a tad unhinged. Raising her head revealed both pupils had shrank to be as thin as a paper's edge, and the veins in her eyes suggested her adrenaline had been kicked into overdrive too.
"This is fun! This is REALLY fun!"
Alex widened his eyes and lowered his arms. It was easy to see that Flandre was getting too worked up, and that kind of behavior would be fatal for everyone in the mansion. So, by raising his hands up near the chest and motioning them down, Alex tried as best as he could to calm her down.
"Hey, Sakuya asked us to not make a mess, remember?"
Flandre giggled for a little longer, but as her lips started to seal so too did the madness on her face subside. She puffed her cheeks for a second and then looked away with the tiniest, innocent guilt in her eyes, "Weeell...I guess I wouldn't..."
The fact that Alex calmed her down so easily worried him. It was like they were two peas in a pod.
"Or I'm the doting babysitter forced to deal with a wild child while the parents go have fun..."
Growling in annoyance as he imagined Shina and Remilia relaxing in a pool sipping tea served by Sakuya, Alex prayed with all his might that he was just overthinking things and returned focus onto Flandre. He still wanted to win, badly, but given the circumstances it was better to just not get riled up over it.
"Alright, lets get back to the duel. You still have another card left?"
Flandre gave a firm nod and then pulled out a second card. This one was a little sparklier than before, and she cherished it close to her chest.
"This is a really special card! Big sister and I came up with this together. I think she said its called a...Last Word?"
"A Last Word? That's the strongest kind of Spell Card. If all else fails, a Last Word is supposed to force an opponent to surrender through the insane amount of bullets it releases," The boy began to grimace in fear, "And if that last card's any indication...Then, well...fuck."
"Oh! But before I activate it..." Flandre squinted her eyes off and poked her cute little fang out. Then, just like that, there were now four Flandres.
"...Oh you've GOT to be kidding me." He thought, even though he saw this coming.
"Hehehe...! Lets keep playing some more! We can have fun together!" The original Flandre squeezed the spell card to dust and proclaimed, "Last Word! Devil's Deception 'Dance of the Four'!"
The four Flandres scattered around to the edges of the room, standing perfectly north, south, east and west from where Alex was. Their giggles echoed like a crowd of children romping around a playground, and they started to twirl around in a complete and perfect circle. They tucked Lavaetein behind their wings and used each flap of them to fire off Danmaku.
The first wave consisted of red bullets all twice the size of an average human hand. They spread out in the form of vertically aligned crescent waves composed of five or so rows. It was effortless to just hover over them, but Alex wasn't prepared for what came after.
Next came a constant stream of orange bullets that spun out clockwise from the Flandres' bodies. Since the red bullets were still around, Alex was confined to the upper half of the room to evade this wave. He laid back and hovered still, and thankfully his healthy diet had given him a thin enough stomach to slip between the only worrisome bullets.
Third in line was something that couldn't be avoided just by lazing around like a vacationer on a beach hammock. The yellow bullets that came from the Flandres stretched out from the floor to the ceiling in a perfectically vertical wall. There is enough of a gap to slip through normally, but the presence of the orange bullets and the remaining red ones made dodging a tight squeeze. And Alex wasn't exactly someone you'd call graceful. He slipped up passing through and at least ten bullets scraped his body, where he began to start feeling some wear and tear regarding his endurance.
"Shoot...I can't tell if this is actually hurting me or if it's all in my head." Real or not, pain proved to be a good motivator for him to fight back, and he turned his attention down towards Flandre. But because he'd been so focused on the bullets, he lost track of the real deal.
The next wave emerged from all sides, this time an upright cross of green bullets. Having made it past the walls, Alex just had to fly to the right a little to hide in the corner of the crosses. But then the next wave dashed any hopes of safety, as the second set of crosses, compromised of bullets, emerged from the Flandres diagonally.
Widening his eyes and sucking in his gut to try and squeeze past the very edge of the cross, Alex ejaculated air prematurely and ended up taking a couple bullets for his trouble. And just when he thought it was over, Flandre showed that she's a lot more cunning than she lets on by sending out a flurry of violet bullets behind her that rebound and fly sporadically amongst the other Danmaku. With the bullets kept in that confined space combined with the perilous predicament Alex was in, the boy had no choice but to let the bullets ram into him.
Now the pattern restarted from the red bullets, so Alex hastily went just a little bit above them, believing it'd be a better vantage point to seek the real Flandre out. But then after a chilling giggle, all four Flandres began to sing.
"Ring-a-round the rosie, a pocket full of posies...Ashes! Ashes! We all fall down..."
While Alex dodged the incoming orange bullets and readied his body for the yellow, he perked his ears up and baited Flandre with a question, "Do you know what the nursery rhyme's meant to describe?"
"No? Big sister used to sing me to sleep with it though."
All four Flandres spoke in harmony, and there wasn't a single deviation to exploit. Alex pressed through the wall of yellow bullets rather poorly, but bit his teeth through the pain and persisted in seeking Flandre out through sound.
"It describes the Black Plague, a terrible epidemic that killed millions of humans."
"Millions? Is that bad?"
"...Yes, yes it is." Alex squinted his eyes a bit and was pained to hear such an innocent but sincere question.
"Oh, well its ok because they stopped dying, right?"
"I...guess that's one way to look at that." He had to stop the conversation right there. Not only because it was making him sick to his stomach, but because it was proving ineffectual in finding Flandre. It wasn't just a voice that was shared between them, but their powers were the same too.
While trying and failing to make it past the crosses, Alex could feel his body weakening some more. With a gasp of ragged air he forced his heart to start pumping more blood so he could keep going and looked around. Luckily for him, the violet bullets this time around avoided him all on their own, giving him a little more time to come up with a battle plan.
"It'd be easy to just throw projectiles everywhere and flush Flandre out that way, but...Who knows how long it'd take to beat her Last Word that way? Since my power seems to perfectly translate into Danmaku strength, I SHOULD be able to defeat Flandre in one attack. But her clones are way too perfect...They're exact reflections of the real-"
He stopped to widen his eyes and then murmur, "Reflections...reflections that's it!"
Snapping his fingers, he pushed away from the wall of yellow bullets and started to cook up a genuine solution to this puzzling predicament. Giving himself a firm nod he whispered "Better hope this works..." and positioned himself in the very center of the four Flandres' line of sight. Keeping that spot in mind as he evaded the incoming crosses, he stiffened himself upright and swung his hands up next to the shoulders.
He spawned two rugged glass daggers as big as his head and threw them aside. They traveled straight as an arrow and missed the Flandres entirely, sticking to the walls. He tanked the violet bullets even as his vision started to blur and spun around to throw two larger daggers north and south.
"Your aim is off...Are you ok?" Flandre inquired without a hint of malice.
"Yeah, I'm juuuust fine..." He whispered as he set his hands on fire and spun around, throwing fireballs out towards the glass. Flandre evaded them and started her bombardment from the beginning. Alex resumed floating around, but didn't really seem to care as much for the art of dodging. He focused on the glass daggers, which had melted down into bumpy but functional reflective surfaces. He had accounted for distance when making their size, so no matter which way he'd look he'd be able to 'see' Flandre.
He swung his right hand behind his back and started to condensed fire into an orb. Hotter and hotter it burned until it his fingers were pushed apart trying to contain it. He forced his eyes wide open and they started to water, but he knew his efforts would soon bear fruit.
"Have you just given up mister?" Flandre again asked with innocence.
"Give up? Me? Ha!" Alex blurted out with scarcely any doubt in his burning heart, "Take it from someone who knows a thing or two about clones Flandre..."
His head swiveled clockwise as right at that moment one of the makeshift mirrors failed to have a reflection. Locking on to that particular Flandre, he hid his grin and waited to her to come around from behind before crunching the flaming orb.
"Its impossible to perfectly copy the original!" He spun right back around and fired a beam of fire twice as big as he was. Flandre widened her eyes in sheer awe as it crashed into her body and threw her against the wall. A massive hole blew up in the wall right as all her bullets and clones vanished.
Alex threw his hand back, widened his eyes, and yelled out a quick 'Shit!' before flying right over to the hot rubble that Flandre had gotten buried under. As he grabbed onto one of the stones, Flandre started to giggle and poked her head right out. The mild burn marks on her skin quickly mended, and she lit up with a smile.
"Hehehe...! That was fun! Can we play again?"
Alex's eyelids fluttered as he drooped with a sigh and murmured, "A vampire's stamina is incredible...and frightening."
"Flandre! Flandre, are you there?!" The panicked cry of an elder sister rung out into the basement, and the moment Alex looked up Remilia rammed him aside with a divebomb and clutched Flandre's hands into her own.
"Are you hurt?" For a brief moment, you wouldn't be blamed for forgetting that the person speaking was a proud and graceful vampire. She spoke with such deep, mending concern for her little sister that it almost made her human.
Not that Alex cared so much for the touching gesture, what with being thrown on his ass like a trashy rag doll and all. Rubbing his sore butt while standing up, Alex puffed air from his cheeks and tucked both hands into the pockets.
"Oh there you are Alex!" He was a bit relieved to hear Shina's voice, and it was just as full of pep as when he last saw her. He took a couple steps back to give her space to hop down in front of him. Then came the vampire's peanut gallery of Sakuya, Meiling, Patchouli and...Marisa?
Pointing fingers at her with a puzzled slack of the jaw, Alex was about to ask why she was here when the sight of her bag of books clamped his mouth right up.
Flandre rolled her eyes a bit and snipped at her sister, "Remilia...I'm fine, stop coddling me in front of my playmate."
"You're fine?" Remilia eyes perked up as she scanned her little sister's body once again. Then with a puff of the cheeks and an awkward cough the vampire turned around with arms crossed, looking quite proud of herself as she stated, "O-Of course you're fine! I knew everything would turn out ok."
"Oh really now?" Alex crossed his arms and got right up to Remilia's face with his fingers fiddling away at both elbows, "And just WHAT exactly was your plan here, Remilia?"
The vampire didn't lose her cool and met Alex's stare cold as ice, telling him in a stern but delighted voice, "I'm glad you asked. Why don't we take this outside? Its quite stuffy in here."
Remilia waved to her sister and used the other hand to snap at Sakuya all without looking like an utter fool, "You could do with a little fresh air dear sister. Sakuya, provide her with one of my spare parasols."
"Awww, but I want to keep playing." Flandre pouted and swung Lavaetein down in place of stamping her feet.
"There'll be plenty of time for that later. I do believe our guests deserve some answers." Remilia smiled and waved her hand out, where Sakuya provided a parasol for the two Scarlets a second later. The three fluttered through the gaping hole, followed by Meiling.
Marisa threw the bag of books over her shoulder and hopped onto her broom, flashing a smirk towards Shina and giving her a genuine compliment, "Ya put on a good show. Maybe I'll catch another of yer duels later, see if ya can keep up!"
She rocketed out of the mansion before Patchouli could chide her for theivery, but the librarian didn't seem to care. Instead her focus was on Alex, where she tilted her head and then let out dry 'hmph' before flying out after the others.
Alex planted a hand on his hip and rubbed his shoulders around, taking advantage of the solitude he's been granted with Shina to ask, "So...Remilia forced you into a Spell Card duel?"
"Huh? Yeah!" Shina smiled and tucked her hands near the rear as she turned around, "Thoooough, it wasn't 'forced' persay."
"...What did she do?" He took up a tone as though coercing a child to tattle.
"Nothing! Least...not on purpose, I think?" She tapped the side of her face and swayed her head back and forth, "I musta just been taken in by her natural charisma."
"Then you need to work on strengthening your mental fortitude," Alex said, pulling his punches by keeping his tone casual, "She may be a vampire, but she's got the mentality of a child. There's nothing attractive about her at all."
"I...don't think you're the best judge of that Alex." She laid her hand against the side of her lip puckered face.
"Oh yeah? Why not?" The boy got a little riled up by that and slanted his brows.
"Well, I'm the only other girl you've spent a lot of time with..." Shina bit her teeth down right after, forcing a grin.
"And I don't need any others." Alex closed his eyes and crossed his arms, taking a firm stance on what he just said. It took Shina's embarrassed but pleased giggle for him to widen his eyes with a face redder than the Scarlet's eyes and realize what he had just said.
"Y-You did that on purpose!" He blurted, knowing that he had told no lie.
"Hehehehe. Come on, we're keeping 'em waiting." She spun around with her hair stretched down like a golden curtain that hid her smile and glided right out of the mansion.
Alex grumbled and then followed, but not without dashing any hopes that might be brewing in her head, "Ok fine, but once we're done playing Remilia's game its back to searching!"
They met the Scarlet Devil crew near the edge of the porch. Remilia basked in the shadows of her parasol as the sun shone bright above, and Patchouli was right by with an open spell book.
"Ah! Took you long enough!" Remilia proclaimed.
"You're the one who's stalling Remilia. Now spill, why did you do all this?" Alex cut to the chase, knowing that he wasn't the only one impatient as he glanced over at the tapping Patchouli and Flandre.
"Yes yes, I'm sure you two are veeery busy. But! What I have to say is very important, and you have no choice but to listen. If you do, Patchouli has agreed to let you examine her library to search for your 'Cosmos Drive'."
"...Now we're getting somewhere." Alex cracked a pleasant smile and nodded in agreement.
"Good!" Remilia clapped her hands and then wiggled her fingers at Patchouli, who thrust her right hand up and weaved together a magic megaphone that the vampire snatched up and gave a couple pats on the back.
"...What now?" Alex's mood did a whole 180 and he began to scowl.
"Fufufu...You know, you really should've seen this coming the moment you two so casually breeched the barrier. But, its not as though you could have known what this place is like."
"Ms. Remilia, you're not makin' any sense..." Shina pointed out.
"I shall in a moment. Lets just say I'm...speeding up the inevitable for my own amusement." Remilia rocketed into the sky with parasol and megaphone in hands. High above the mansion, Remilia spread her wings and placed the megaphone right up against her mouth.
"I swear, this is getting ridic-"
"Attention Gensokyo!" Remilia screamed so loud that there was no way a single Youkai, Deity or Human would fail to hear her, "It is I, Remilia Scarlet, your one and only Scarlet Devil! I am sending a challenge out to all able-bodied denizens of Gensokyo...You may have seen a pair of lights falling from the sky today. Fret not, we're not under attack this time! Instead, those lights have heralded a legend to our world. Some of you may have heard of this person in passing, others may have lived to see him in person way back when..."
"That's right! The Elemental Overlord has come to Gensokyo!"
Alex spat spit and choked on empty air for a good ten seconds, while Shina widened her eyes and dropped her lower jar as far as it could go.
"And he's not come alone! Thus, this is my proposition..." All-across the land, everyone who held a position of power paid the utmost attention as Remilia laid the stakes of her game out crystal clear, "Anyone who can somehow manage to defeat both of them in Spell Card duels...Shall earn whatever favor they desire from me! ...So go! Seek these two out as best you can, and beat them if you believe yourselves capable! Lets show this living legend what it TRULY means to be a part of Gensokyo!"
She stopped and lowered the megaphone along with her head. Alex was staring at her, understandably full of anger and confusion. He clutched his hands into fists as Remilia bore her fangs into a grin. Now he understood the full extent of the vampire's cunning. Her scarlet eyes locked this important truth behind a curtain of cold, calculating steel, waiting until the prime oppurtunity to spring her trap.
Now all of Gensokyo has become a hunting ground for the mercilessly strong, and him and Shina were the perfect prey. Those who knew nothing of the Elemental Overlord would want to see what he's capable of. Those who DID know would relish the chance to face a legend.
Alex knew this would come to be a huge pain in the ass for him and Shina going forward, and there was no avoiding it. If they wanted to find the Cosmos Drive, they'd just have to fight off every single challenger lured in by Remilia's whimsical ploy.
"...Ok then Remilia..." Alex exuded with confidence in the smirk he flashed, "Bring. It. On."
"Fufufu...let the games begin, Elemental Overlord." Remilia whispered with joy.
Next Time: The Immortal Legends