This came out quite late. I guess I was just a bit busy and I will be for the next few weeks. Exam week is starting after all.
And now with that said, I hope you enjoy this chapter.
The sky had seemingly shattered, creating cracks that resemble glass cracking. Meteor showers were falling down everywhere, creating destruction in their wake, but even so, so far they're only visible within certain areas, meaning people outside of those area did not notice them yet, and a village where most of the humans reside is not within those areas, meaning they were oblivious to the incident happening around them as they carried around their daily lives... until now. The Human Village was still unharmed and people had nothing to worry about. The village head, who is also the village's resident teacher and headmistress(man, that's a lot of positions for one person), was just peacefully carrying out her classes with the village kids when she received a visit from someone she didn't think would come visit her.
"Keine, do you have a moment?" Yukari said as she peeked out from the classroom door, motioning for her to come outside. Keine nodded and told the class to do the revisions she had just written on the blackboard before she walked out.
"Ah, Miss Yukari. What brings you here? It's rare to see you casually visiting the village." Keine said after she had closed the door, curious about Yukari's visit.
"You see, Keine, we have kind of a severe problems in our hands and I only came here to warn you of said problem." Yukari said. This got Keine interested as, to her knowledge, there wasn't anything happening around as of yet, so to see her suddenly come to her to warn her of this potential danger made her a bit worried.
"So what should I know about this... problem, Miss Yukari?" Keine asked her, starting to feel worried, to which Yukari grabbed her hand and opened a gap. "Come, I'll show you," she said. Keine looked through the gap and saw the problem at hand.
"Wait, isn't that-"
"That's right. The Great Hakurei Barrier." Yukari answered her before she could finish her question. "As you can see here, the barrier's cracked already and many outside world entities are finding their way in as we speak." Yukari then closed the gap. "Luckily for you villagers, the problem has not spread to this village yet, but just in case it does find its way here, I'll need you to prepare your village for any potential crash-ins. Is that okay with you?"
It was a lot of info to take in, but Keine took them all in anyway and started to think of what actions she would take should that happen. "Alright, Miss Yukari, I'll try my best to defend this village from any attacks." Keine said understandingly with a nod.
"It may or may not be an attack, but we do know what caused the Barrier to crack. Now the question is who or what conjured up the whole thing..." Yukari said as she walked to a window and opened it, revealing that it's still clear and sunny outside with no signs of the sky cracking yet. "Now I'll be going. I don't think I have much time to warn the others, but I'll try. This problem is serious here..."
"Alright. You just go ahead and warn anyone that should know about this. I'll keep the villagers aware of this." Keine said.
"Thank you, Keine. Best of luck to you." Yukari then left her place through a gap, leaving Keine no less worried.
"So things are happening outside the village and we are unaware of it happening, huh...? Just what is happening here...?"
"...Wake up... Hey... Wake up...!" Voices were ringing inside her head. 'Oh, come on. Just 5 more minutes...' thought a green-haired girl as she groaned, trying not to wake up, but her body of course betrayed her and decided to wake up anyway. When she did wake up, she found a purple-haired girl in sailor outfit worriedly trying to wake her up. She sighed in relief when she saw her waking up.
"Thank goodness! You're still alive!" the purple-haired girl said before hugging the green-haired girl who was still confused.
"Ow... thanks? What happened...?" the green-haired girl asked in her daze.
"What happened? You two went rolling down the mountain and landed in the water, that's what! You two almost landed in the water and, if it wasn't for me, you two would have." the voice of another girl shouted, a voice familiar to the green-haired girl. She seemed worried and concerned judging from the tone of her voice.
"Nitori... is that you?" the green-haired girl asked as she turned to look at the source of the voice which is a blue-haired girl in a blue coat.
"Yes, it's me Sanae, your local engineering kappa!" the blue-haired girl said with a grin, holding a big spanner over her shoulder in her right hand. "So what happened? Why were you two rolling down the mountain like crazy?" she asked as she went to inspect Sanae and the other girl.
"We were rolling down a mountain?" the purple-haired girl asked.
"Yeah! Sanae held on to you for dear life protecting you from harm." Nitori replied, which made Nepgear uneasy.
"Oh my goodness... I'm so sorry..." The purple-haired girl apologized to Sanae, whose reply was to pat her head.
"It's alright. It's my job to protect people after all." she said before holding her arm in pain. "Ouch... I think I broke my arm on my way down."
"Really? Damn, I didn't bring any first aid with me." Nitori said worriedly.
"Don't worry, I can heal you." the purple-haired girl said, going over to Sanae's arm to inspect it. "Hmm, this does look bad. Hold on, let me heal you." She placed her hands over her hurting arm and seemed to be chanting something. Before Sanae even knew it, her arm started to feel better though not fully healed.
"Woah. How did you do that?" Sanae asked in awe.
"I've learned some healing magic from a nurse friend of mine. I can only use low level healing spells though..." the purple-haired replied.
"Well, whatever you did, it was great! Now I can move my arm again." Sanae said before getting up. "Oh, I forgot. I never got your name. What's your name?"
"My name's Nepgear." the purple-haired girl introduced herself. "It's nice to meet you too, uh..."
"Sanae Kochiya, but you can call me Sanae." Sanae said, helping Nepgear up to her feet. "And that girl there is my best friend, Nitori." she added, pointing to the girl in blue fiddling with a device.
"Yo! Nitori Kawashiro at your service. It's nice to meet you, Nepgear!" Nitori said, introducing herself before extending her hand for a handshake.
Nepgear shook her hand in return and noticed the device Nitori was fiddling. "Hey, that's my N-Gear!" Nepgear said as she pointed to the device Nitori was holding. "Can I have that back, please?"
"Sure. I don't even know how to operate this thing anyway, so might as well have the owner have it." Nitori said, giving Nepgear the 'N-Gear' back.
"Thank you!" Nepgear then pressed some buttons on the N-Gear, somehow managing to turn it on. "Oh, it's still working! Thank goodness!" she said as she fiddled around with her N-Gear before slowly stopping. "Oh, dang it. I don't have any reception here. Of course..."
"Um, if I may ask, what is that thing? It looks familiar, yet at the same time not familiar to me." Sanae asked.
"Oh, this? This is an N-Gear!" Nepgear replied. "It's a communication device that can connect to all known devices, granted they have internet and mobile connections. You can also play games and surf the internet here."
"So it's like a tablet mixed with a handheld game console?" Sanae asked again.
"Yeah, but sadly I can't contact Histy or the others." Nepgear replied. "I could've sent them my location, but since I can't get any reception, I can't do that..."
Nitori walked over to her and looked at the N-Gear from afar. "Whatever this thing is, this is something I've never seen before. The parts look too advanced for our technology, and I thought our tech was already advanced enough." Nitori said. "Sanae, have you seen something like that before?"
"No, I haven't. This is the first time I've seen such things too!" Sanae said.
"You two are talking as if you've never seen this thing before. This thing is available all over Planeptune, so I'm surprised there's still backwards people like you. No offense though." Nepgear said.
"None taken." Sanae and Nitori replied in unison. "Wait, Planeptune?" they both asked in surprise.
"Yeah, Planeptune! You know, the nation with... Purple Heart..." Nepgear trailed off to a stop as she soon realized her situation. "This isn't Gamindustri, is it?"
"I'm afraid not, Nepgear. This is Gensokyo, the Land of Fantasy." Sanae said.
"Gen...sok...yo...? Oh no..." Nepgear started to panic a little. "I couldn't have somehow landed in another world again, could I?"
"I'm afraid so, Nepgear." Nitori said. "But that's okay. You'll learn to like it here if you give it time."
"B-But, Histy... Neptune... and the other CPUs... They're gonna be worried about me!" Nepgear said in her panic.
"Don't worry, Nepgear. I was like you at first too when I first came here. But after a while, I soon grew to love this place!" Sanae said in an attempt to calm her down.
"N-No, you don't understand. I-I'm not like you. I-I need Shares to live."
"Shares?" This got Sanae and Nitori surprised. "You mean you need an external source of energy to live?"
"Yes... I can still live without them, but without Shares I'll be severely weakened and I'll be unable to use my powers." Nepgear informed them.
"But Nepgear, what are Shares?" Sanae asked.
"Shares? Well, Shares are basically faith people give to their preferred CPUs, or Control Patron Units for short." Nepgear explained.
"And what are CPUs?" Nitori asked.
"CPUs are the appointed Goddesses of a given land. They're the ones responsible for the safety and well-being of any given nation." Nepgear continued her explanation, which only garnered a surprised reaction from the two.
"You're a goddess?" Sanae asked.
"Who would've thought?" Nitori said.
"Yes, I am, and without my people, I don't think I can survive..." Nepgear said.
"It's no wonder I can feel a familiar aura from you." Sanae exclaimed, which got her a questioning look from Nepgear. "I live with two goddesses myself, so I know what it's like to live with them."
"You have Goddesses here too?" Nepgear asked, cheering up a bit.
"Well, of course! We have a few gods and goddesses here, two goddesses in my shrine and one god in a neighboring shrine, though if you ask me, I think the other god is either shy or does not exist since we've never seen him." Sanae said.
"I see. So you have two goddesses, huh? That's awesome! I'd like to meet them some time!" Nepgear said excitedly.
"Why wait? We can see them right now!" Sanae said, raising one arm in the air. "Now you can follow me up the mountain, and we can-"
Her words were cut short as an explosion sounded off in the distance. They turned to look at the source of the explosion to see some trees falling down and a meteor coming right at them.
"It's one of those meteors again! Run!" Sanae shouted. The three girls were able to barely jump away in time, Sanae being the closest to it, resulting in her blasted away into a tree. "Ouch... What the..."
"Is everyone alright?" "Sanae, are you okay? Where are you?"
"I'm fine...!" Sanae got up and went to the meteor's crash zone to see Nitori and Nepgear gathered around it. The object was covered in smoke, and it seemed to be really big. "What the hell is that...?"
The smoke cleared and it was revealed to be a large crate almost double their height and many times their length. The crate was semi-metallic and seemed to be blue in color. An engraving was also found on both sides of the crates, the engraving reading "SV".
"What's this? A care package?" "Maybe it's some sort of vehicle?" "Or maybe some highly-advanced stuff?" Whatever it is inside the crate, they could only guess as they tried to get it to open...
Meanwhile, in Marisa's house...
Marisa was still experimenting with the mushrooms she found, this time with Alice keeping watch of her. She was having a blast experimenting, each time creating various results. Alice was reading some books to pass the time when they heard a crash outside of the house.
"What was that?" Marisa asked, stopping her experimentation.
"I don't know. Should we go out and check?" Alice asked.
"I guess so." Marisa and Alice then started to head to the door to see what was up outside. Slowly they opened the door, and in front of them lied a crater covered in smoke not far from the house. Inside the crater was a person, and judging from the silhouette, it was a girl with long hair.
"Someone's in there..." Marisa whispered to Alice as she took out her mini-hakkero just in case. The figure inside the crater started to get up and stretched its arms. The smoke cleared and revealed the perpetrator of the crater. It was a girl with golden hair dressed in some light metallic armor covering the chest and waist with a dark blue bodysuit underneath them and metallic boots of the same material as the armor. She seemed to be disoriented and injured.
"Ow... That is the last time I'll try to follow anyone carelessly..." the girl said, struggling to keep herself standing. She then saw Marisa and Alice standing in front of them, Marisa with her mini-hakkero in hand while Alice with her dolls floating in front of her. "Uh... can I help you guys?" the girl asked them.
"You. Who are you?" Alice asked, ordering her dolls to arm themselves.
"I'm Luxanna Crownguard..." the girl answered. "What's going on here? What is this place?"
"This is Gensokyo, Miss Luxanna. What are you doing crashing into our yard?" Alice asked again.
"Miss? Oh, I'm not that old yet. You can call me Lux." Lux said, seeming to have dropped her guard already. "You two seem like nice people, so I don't think I would have to worry about myself."
"O...kay? So what are you doing here again?" Marisa asked this time, her mini hakkero still pointing at her.
"Me? Well... I just died and was waiting to respawn back into Summoner's Rift until I suddenly found myself falling from the sky and that's how I probably ended up here." Lux said, seeming a bit worried. "Anyway, since this isn't Summoner's Rift, I guess I'm out of the match then."
"Match? Were you in some kind of battle?" Alice asked as she commanded her doll to stand aside.
"It wasn't really a match per se, but it's more like a game where 2 teams of five would battle it out while defending their own Nexus, the one to have their Nexus destroyed loses. It's kind of like a tradition really." Lux explained to the other two blondes, interested in this so-called game.
"So you fight like that pretty much everyday, and you can respawn however you like? Wow, I wish danmaku matches were like that." Marisa said with a grin.
""Dan-mah-ku"? What's that?" Lux asked, tilting her head to the side.
"It's a complicated thing." Alice said with a pause. "It's where two people shoot barrages of bullets towards each other, creating various patterns and-"
"Oh, so the one who creates the better patterns win?" Lux suddenly asked, interrupting Alice.
"N-No...? The point of that is to knock down the other person, the first one to knock down the other wins." Alice continued.
"That's only the basics though." Marisa added, but it would seem that Lux wasn't taking it well.
"I don't really get your danmaku..." Lux said.
"So do we not get your Summoner's Rift thing." Marisa said back. After an unneeded pause, they both laughed. "Okay, that was just stupid. You're from the Outside World after all. I don't expect you to get it the first time anyway." Marisa said.
"And I thought you would actually freak out when I told you about Summoner's Rift to be honest. Most people I met got scared when I told them that. I'm surprised you two were calm." Lux said.
"Trust me, we've been through so many things together." Marisa said.
"More like you and Reimu only though." Alice piped in.
They were having a pretty nice conversation with each other when they heard a deafening roar coming from behind the houses.
"That roar... It sounds like it's coming from Misty Lake!" Marisa said in surprise.
"Look, over there!" Alice said as she pointed to a dark figure rising behind the houses. It seemed to be in the shape of a dragon, and it's breathing fire towards the ground, burning the surrounding forest.
"A dragon! That's a dragon for sure!" Lux said as she tensed up. "We gotta take it down fast!"
"And that's what we're gonna do. We're gonna take it down like a fly!" Marisa said with confident, hopping onto her broom with Alice hopping behind her.
"Wait! I wanna go with you!" Lux said as she tried to get on the broom which barely has enough space.
"Hey, are you sure? That thing's gotta be dangerous." Marisa asked.
"And besides, can you even fight?" Alice added.
"Of course I can fight! I can shoot magic from my wand!" Lux said, pulling her wand out of... somewhere.
"Alright, if you insist. Just don't come crying to me if you get hurt." Marisa said before she took off towards where the dragon is, bringing Alice and Lux along with her. The dragon seemed to be wreaking havoc as we speak, the land below burning up in flames...
Sanae, Nitori, and Nepgear had just gotten the crate open, revealing an armored tank tinted blue inside it. Its height measures just barely 1.5x their heights, but they can tell that it looks to be a one-man vehicle. It has two rotary vulcans on the sides, one on each side, and the top of the tank is equipped with a large cannon. Sadly though it doesn't seem to be operational just yet.
"Woah! Look at this find!" Nitori said in amazement, her eyes glittering with stars. She began to zip around the tank, marveling at the sight of it. "This is amazing! I've never seen anything like this before!"
"I know, right? This thing looks so cool and futuristic!" Nepgear said, following Nitori in marveling at it and began touching various parts of it.
"I must admit, this is one sick-looking tank, and I mean it in a good way." Sanae said. "Still, something about this thing seems familiar to me, but I can't quite put my finger on it..."
After Nitori and Nepgear were done fangirling over it, they tried to open the tank to enter it, but from the looks of it, all entrances were sealed shut.
"Aw... I really wanted to go inside this thing..." Nepgear said with a small pout.
"I know... I wanted to try and mess around with it to see what I can transform it into." Nitori said after her.
"Transform? You mean like a robot?" Nepgear asked excitedly.
"Maybe, whatever that is? I still want to mess around with it though." Nitori answered.
"You know, this thing transforming into a robot or a mecha doesn't sound too bad..." Sanae said, but she was ignored as the other two began to try and force the tank open. "Oh, come on..." Sanae decided to walk over and inspected it closely. While she may not inspect it fast, she was actually taking in the view of it, looking at all the intricate details put into it. All the metal parts that seemed to have been shined pretty recently, the materials used for the vulcans that she cannot recognize, and this small LCD screen that seems to be displaying something. "Hey guys, I think I know what's up with it." Sanae shouted to get their attention, which they finally seemed to listen.
"What's wrong?" "Did you find something?" They both went over to Sanae and saw the LCD screen at the side of the tank. "Ah, I think I see what's going on here." "Why didn't we notice this before?"
The screen showed an icon of a battery, inside it looking empty with an electric icon blinking red.
"I think it ran out of power." Sanae said. "What kind of energy do you think this thing uses?"
"It looks to be electricity, but the amount to recharge it is probably huge." Nitori said as she assumed a thinking position. "I wonder if it can recharge with solar power? This thing seems futuristic enough for it." Nitori added.
"Maybe we just need to charge electricity into its engine or something." Nepgear said. "But still, this doesn't look like anything I've worked on before..."
The three girls sat around the tank for a while, wondering what to do with it. After a minute or two wondering about their options, Nitori stood and started walking towards the river where she came from.
"Nitori? Where are you going?" Sanae asked curiously.
"You two just stay here and keep on a lookout. I'll go back to my lab and grab some power cells and a charging station." Nitori said before she dived into the river, disappearing beneath the water.
"Do you think she'll be okay?" Nepgear asked worriedly.
"She's fine. She can breathe underwater, so she won't be drowning anytime soon." Sanae said reassuringly. She and Nepgear would then keep watch on the blue-tinted tank for any activities as they wait until Nitori returns. Hopefully she's quick about it...
Meanwhile, inside a mansion located in the middle of a huge lake that's somewhat related to the other lake behind Marisa's house...
The residents of the mansion was pretty much unaware for any of the catastrophe that has landed on Gensokyo. They were all carrying out their daily lives as usual until some of the fairy maids working there heard some weird noises coming nearby. Before they could go check it out, they were blasted away by some magical blasts before they would see two blurry figures moving around the mansion swift as lightning as they battled against each other. Upon a closer inspection, they can make out that the fast-moving figures consisted of a green-haired woman skimpily dressed in a bat-theme leotard with purple bat-themed leggings and a large buffed man dressed in a blue suit with matching blue pants, his body emanating an aura of sorts. They both fought and fought, not caring of any of the furniture around them as they knocked down vases and cupboards containing expensive cups.
"Come on, is that the best you got~?" the woman said in a teasing manner as she released a magic blast from her hands towards the man.
"Hehe~ This isn't even my full power!" the man said as he avoided the magic blast launched by the woman before dashing towards her.
"Fufufu~ Well I'd like to see you try!" the woman said as she charged towards him where they clashed and started zipping from place to place in their battle, leaving the poor defenseless fairy maids running around trying to protect the furniture.
[A/N : Well, this took longer to write. Just two chapters in and I'm already exhausted of ideas and how to progress with the story. I guess I really should plan my stories in the long run, huh?]
New Characters(based on appearance)
Blue-tinted tank - Metal Slug Attack
Lux - League of Legends
Green-haired bat lady - Darkstalkers
Blue-suited man - Darkstalkers
Returning Characters
Nepgear - Hyperdimension Neptunia mk2