Stage 6 – Jacinta's dream, Winter Sports Championship
Reimu and Marisa find themselves in front of a huge series of stadiums. It's very cold, and the snow and hail is coming down in a mighty storm of a blizzard. Not only is there a snowstorm, there is a thunderstorm happening at the same time. Despite that, they can hear people cheering "JACINTA! JACINTA! JACINTA!" over and over again. It's loudest coming from the ice hockey stadium that is in full use despite the hostile weather.
Reimu points to the brightly lit ice hockey stadium, standing out against the driving cold chill of the storm. "Jacinta must be in that one. Let's go."
They headed for the stadium, fighting the blowing snow and hail to get inside. Once they're past the doors, the effects of the storm are escaped and they sigh with relief. That's broken as they emerge out into the inside of the ice rink. Faceless and featureless fans cover the stands, all of them either watching eagerly or cheering Jacinta's name loudly. The two girls enter the empty ice rink, using their powers to keep themselves from slipping.
It's strangely dark, but when they reach the middle of the rink, the lights snap on, temporarily blinding them. The crowd roars as their eyes adjust to the light. Looking up, they saw a young girl dressed like an ice hockey player. She wore a dark blue and white ice hockey jersey/hoodie combo with a lightning bolt breaking a big white chunk of quartz on the front and shoulders and the number 13 in big bold red and white numbers on the back that was completely unzipped. Underneath the jersey she wore a grayish cornflower blue muscle shirt with the number 13 in big bold purple numbers on the front and very dark blue numbers on the back. She wore thick, baggy black ice hockey goalie pants with bright yellow knee pads and a pair of very bulky spiked dark brown metal gauntlets with large, thick cuffs on her hands attached to short, broken chains. Her black hair was relatively short and spiked up near the end. She had a hockey mask with red triangles under the eye and mouth holes and the number 13 in the middle of the forehead. She had a large black belt on her waist with many hockey pucks on it and a pair of big, black and dark blue ice skates. She was very tall and muscular despite the fact that she only seemed to be around thirteen, but she was still very attractive.
She stood on top of the announcer's box and glared down at them with immense hatred and fury in her grayish blue violet bloodshot, sleep-deprived eyes. This was clearly Jacinta Gawkyzentyre, the leader of the Crystalline Crushers and the one the dream belonged to.
Reimu took up a fighting stance, bouncing precariously on the ice. "So you're Jacinta. It's time to end this scheme of yours!"
Marisa raised her fists, teeth clenched and stance ready for the conflict. "Yeah! I know yer not gonna listen to us, so let's just skip to the part where we-"
Jacinta waved them away, her voice cold and even. "Get out."
Marisa blinked numbly at the smothering denial. "Uh, what?"
Jacinta raised a finger, the motion calm even as her voice raised to a shrill note, losing it as she went on, rambling from atop the announcer's box. "I said… GET OUT! YOU TWO GIRLS HAVE GOTTEN ON MY LAST NERVE! Here and now… You… All… Will… DIE! DO YOU HEAR ME! DIE! DIE! DIE!" She quickly lost control of herself, rambling in an angry tirade that had now lost all meaning.
Marisa cringes and holds up a hand. "Wow. I didn't think she'd be so mad. This insomnia must be really getting to her."
Reimu grunted as she twirled into readiness. "Well, we have been doing everything we can to stop her from getting the sleep she wants!" She rolled her eyes, "Everyone in Gensokyo knows how cranky I get when I don't get enough sleep! But for her… It must be so much worse."
Jacinta leaps off of the announcer's box and lands in front of them with a tremendous crash, causing the ice on the floor to crack. She pointed her hockey stick at them, and the chainsaw teeth on it begin to rotate with a rapidly building angry whir of a mechanical threat.
Jacinta took a step forward, swinging the stick in low motions, its cutting edges twirling. "I'm going to freeze you, grind you up, dunk you in strawberry syrup and sell the slush at my next ice hockey game. But first…" She swung the stick towards a goal on the rink. "We're going to play a little game of ice hockey. Now then, let's bring out: THE HOME TEAM!"
Rising from the ice, hundreds of electrified ice clones of Jacinta emerged from the rink itself, each wielding a similar cutting hockey stick, though theirs were far colder in appearance.
Jacinta Turned her stick to the other goal with a single deranged chuckle. "And now… THE AWAY TEAM!"
Reimu and Marisa look behind them to see hundreds of electrified ice clones of Jacinta rise up from the floor of the ice rink behind them. They turn to Jacinta in confusion. Reimu raises a lone finger. "Uh… if those are both teams, then what are we?" Marisa nodded with shared confusion, looking between the two teams.
Jacinta gives a nasty smirk with a shrug. "Heh. Isn't it obvious?! YOU'RE THE HOCKEY PUCK! Now… let the game begin!" she shouted as she lunged at them, her stick raised and ready.
Reimu flinched back, but didn't flee. "Here she comes! Marisa! Be careful. Ghouls are notoriously difficult to take down!"
Marisa fired a spirited thumbs up. "Got it, Reimu! Let's see how this ghoul likes playing our game!"
Jacinta screeched, unintelligible at first. "You won't keep me from sleeping anymore! I'M GOING TO CRUSH YOU! YOU AND ANYONE ELSE WHO GETS IN MY WAY!" Her speech then devolved into maddened howling. The time for talking had ended.
Jacinta slammed her mask down on her face and the eye holes began to glow red and the three girls prepared to fight. Jacinta started to move around the ice in a very graceful but aggressive manner and started to speed up as her electrified ice clone "teammates" started circling around Reimu and Marisa, who immediately picked out the real Jacinta and started blasting away at her. She started zigzagging and circling in between them and around the clones and the girls to avoid the shots when suddenly she smacked the ice with her hockey stick and hockey puck-shaped Danmaku flew at the girls. Instinctively they dodged them, but no sooner did they do that than hundreds of similar pucks start coming at them from both her and the ice clones which were also smacking hockey puck-shaped Danmaku at them. They noticed Jacinta and her clones were doing a rapid fire with her stick on the ice while she was moving. The girls started dodging the pucks and continued firing but couldn't help but start to wonder how long she can keep this up before she gets pushed into using a Spell Card.
As if she read their minds, Jacinta then went for her first spell card, Lake Sign "Formation T-1! Go!" She began to rapidly fire a barrage of even more hockey puck-shaped Danmaku that bounced around the arena before exploding.
"Marisa! Let's counterattack!" shouts Reimu as they danced and spun to avoid the projectiles. She countered with her own attack of exploding orbs that shot out from her clasped hands and immediately blasted through Jacinta's pucks and into her. Jacinta just tanked every hit and while Reimu was busy generating the orbs, skated in a beeline towards her and slammed her with a ferocious tackle. Reimu fell back on the ice and tried to shake off the hit groggily. But Marisa was quick to avenge her with a powerful Spell Card of her own.
Jacinta took the hits again and went right into her next spell card, Lake Sign "Formation H! Go!" The girls heard a loud rumbling noise and look up to see twelve icy zambonis, appear above the rafters of the arena and fell randomly to the ice generating thunderous shock waves with each drop. After they all landed, they began to move around randomly, forcing Reimu and Marisa to avoid being crushed, which was very difficult considering they still had the clones of Jacinta to worry about. They flew above the zambonis to get a moment to catch their breath; they noticed a huge shadow falling at the center of the ice rink. Looking up again, they saw an absolutely massive ice zamboni plummeting towards them.
They were barely able to avoid it and the final ice zamboni exploded as it hit the ground, destroying the other zambonis in the process.
They narrowly dodged the blast and looked up to see Jacinta perched back up in the announcer's box. This time she raised her hockey stick and made it randomly drop lightning bolts down on their head. Dodging was tricky because it was difficult to notice when the bolts would strike, but they were telegraphed just enough for them to find the gaps. But Marisa was too slow and one zapped her, causing the crowd to go wild and start chanting Jacinta's name again.
"Yeesh! Yer really full'a yerself, ain't cha?" Marisa remarks as the chants grew louder. "SHUT THE HELL UP!" screamed Jacinta. "You may have played well in my friend's dreams, but this DREAM IS MINE!" She pointed at them as her fury only seemed to grow, "You're trapped inside MY dream and this dream IS MINE TO COMMAND! YOU! WILL! ALL! DIE!
Marisa, seeing an opening as Jacinta continues her angry ranting, prepares her favorite spell card, Love Sign "Master Spark". The giant laser and accompanying star bits all hit Jacinta hurling her back and cutting her off mid-rant as the faceless crowd chants were reduced to a murmur.
Jacinta leapt out of the impact crater of broken and partially melted ice and countered with her next spell card Lake Sign "Formation I! Go!". This spell card brought up even more ice clones of her that use their sticks to toss around a huge glacier. Every time a clone hit the glacier it sent waves of ice shards at them that they had to avoid as well. Looking at each other and nodding, the two girls decided that the best way to end the card would be to destroy the glacier.
The girls knew that for an object that size, they would need to combine their powers. So both girls summoned up a powerful orb of magic and spiritual power that struck the glacier dead center. The powerful orb completely obliterated the glacier. It went up an explosion as the glacier shattered into a million icy pieces going everywhere. "Duck!" shouted Reimu. The razor-sharp ice pieces passed over them with inches to spare. Daring to look back, they both noticed to their delight that the orb had hit Jacinta as well, doing heavy damage.
But Jacinta just didn't seem to care. She just let out a furious bellow and made her next move and used yet another Spell Card. This time, it was Lake Sign "Formation R! Go!" A giant hockey puck made of ice appeared and Jacinta seemed to be steering it towards the goal at the other end of the ice rink.
"What is she doing this time?" asked Reimu in confusion.
"I dunno, but I don't wanna find out! Let's attack her while she's distracted, ze!"
"You're right, Marisa!" screamed Reimu. "Let's see how she likes this Spell Card!" She then used Dream Land "Great Duplex Barrier". A giant force field pops up with Reimu almost shimmering behind it and Marisa close behind who also used a Spell Card of her own. Every shot hit Jacinta straight on and destroyed the hockey puck, but they didn't just hurt her: They just made her even angrier!
"YOU TWO ARE WEARING ON MY LAST NERVE!" shrieked Jacinta, "Why can't you all JUST. LET. ME. SLEEP!" She then used the Spell Card Lake Sign "Formation T-2! Go!". Moving to the center of the ice rink she lifted her hockey stick which began to crackle with electricity before a giant cross of electricity shot out from it that started rotating clockwise while smaller bars of electricity flew out from it.
This attack was really hard to avoid, especially for Marisa. She decided that she needed to use a Spell Card of her own to end this one. So without a moment's hesitation, she moved as soon as she saw an opening and used one of her stronger Spell Cards, this one being Light Flow "Shooting Echo". A magical circle surrounded her and hundreds of Danmaku shaped like light blue stars shot out from the circle and started to ricochet off of every surface, destroying every ice clone it hit and pummeling Jacinta, knocking her out of the Spell Card.
Marisa smiled and flashed a "V for victory" sign with her fingers. I'm glad that Spell Card is so effective against ice users, thought Marisa in her joy; Crino always did seem to hate that one, ze!
As if expecting that outcome, Jacinta just jumped back and used her next Spell Card, Lake Sign "Formation E-1! Go!" She hopped up onto the rafters of the arena, pointed her hockey stick at them and began firing giant skulls of ice at them that flew out in a spiral pattern. The girls tried to shoot down the skulls, but for every ice skull they hit; three more took its place.
Reimu simply decided to fight fire with fire and brought up her own Spell Card, Second Card "Yin-Yang Scattering". Countless projectiles that looked like Yin-Yang balls flew out from the tip of her gohei and started bouncing off of the ice and rafters and exploded on impact. The skulls' attack formation was suddenly completely disrupted and one by one the Yin-Yang orbs made contact with the ice skulls, taking them out with fierce explosions. The explosions were so powerful, in fact that the force of the blast made Jacinta lose her balance and fall right off the rafters. The two girls winced as she hit the ground with a loud thud. But she just got right back up and with sickening cracking noises that were being made by her broken bones quickly mending, jumped impossibly high.
Jacinta did a back flip, already fully healed and landed with both feet down and the hockey stick poised at a perfect 90-degree angle cocked to do damage. Jacinta immediately made a mighty swing with her hockey stick in an arc resulting in giant waves of ice flying at the girls. At the same time, she raises her hockey stick high above her head, sending bolts of lightning crashing into the ice. However this next set of bolts then seemed to bend inward and struck Jacinta and not them causing Marisa and Reimu to pause and wonder why she was striking herself.
Their eyes widened in horror when they realized that she was actually healing herself. Whatever damage Marisa's last spell card did seemed to now be healing as Jacinta just seemed to get even more powerful! Thinking quickly, Marisa decided to respond with another one of her Spell Cards, this one being Black Magic "Event Horizon". The multicolored Danmaku hit Jacinta, who was forced to stay still while she healed herself and knocked her completely out of her healing.
Jacinta's face contorted into a twisted snarl behind her hockey mask, and the eye holes of her hockey mask seemed to glow even brighter, as if to highlight her rapidly-growing rage. Narrowing her eyes, Jacinta decided to hit them again as hard as she could with her penultimate Spell Card.
This one was Lake Sign "Formation E-2! Go!". A line of icy copies of Jacinta immediately emerged from the floor and started to fire lightning bolts at the girls. These bolts came at them in rapid fire, being much faster than the previous times she had tried to strike them down with her lightning.
Reimu turned to Marisa, "Marisa! We have to take them out at the source!"
"Got it, ze!"
Quickly combining their forces once again, the girls blasted the real Jacinta while avoiding the lightning bolts with great dexterity. As they kept up their assault, the copies of her crumbled away as her concentration was broken. When Jacinta was all alone again, she began to tremble with pure rage. Under her mask a look of pure wrath formed on Jacinta's face. Not just wrath, but a mix of rage, frustration and determination. "YOU! YOU! YOU! YOU!" she started shrieking like some of the banshees Reimu and Marisa knew. "YOU… YOU… YOU…! I… KILL! DIE! DIE! DIE! Die… NOW!"
It was clear now that Jacinta had finally been pushed to her absolute limit. "YOU! TAKE THIS! EAT THIS! NOW!" She then used her Last Word Spell Card: Lake Sign "Formation N! Go!". She raised her hockey stick above her head and more and more ice began to coat it, transforming it into a huge icy chainsaw that crackled with electricity over her head, swinging it menacingly from side to side. The teeth on the chainsaw began to whir to life as she then started to move around the ice randomly and with great speed and force as she swung the chainsaw around while bouncing around every surface in the ice rink, even the ceiling while shooting off large icicles and big balls of electricity at random. She finished the combo by jumping right at them and slamming the chainsaw into the ground, causing a big explosion of electrified ice shards.
The two girls were barely able to avoid the entire thing, especially the big explosion at the end. Fortunately, this Spell Card apparently had taken a lot out of Jacinta, as she stopped moving and began to breathe heavily in order to catch her breath. Reimu instantly noticed that Jacinta was very close to being finished off. She couldn't help but smirk.
At that moment she aimed an especially powerful yin-yang orb at Jacinta and fired. Jacinta flew backwards with the intensity of the blast, knocking down the rows of ice clones behind her and landing awkwardly in the net behind her, losing the fight instantly.
Marisa heaved for breath as the arena faded around her. "Man, you weren't kidding about ghouls bein' difficult ta take down."
Reimu's breath was more measured, but still strained. "Yes…" She took a slow inhale, filling her lungs. "Her healing factor was incredibly strong, but still…" She let it out, forcing herself into a normal rate. "At least we finally stopped her."
Much to the two girl's shock, Jacinta starts to chuckle. Reimu and Marisa look at each other in concern.
Jacinta chuckles darkly with her worrying words. "You're too late. I can feel it… We've got all the Nightmare Energy we need now. We all slept next to Frederica's prison, so by the time I wake up, she should be free. Oh gods…" She snickered with a foul grin. "I can't wait! I'm probably going to sleep for a whole year! Later, losers…"
Reimu thrust a hand out towards Jacinta, but she and the rest of the dream was fading all too quickly. "Jacinta, wait! My gut is telling me that you shouldn't trust Frederica! JACINTA! Oh no…" She slumped down in the fading dream. "She can't hear me anymore!"
The dream ends completely, and the girls find themselves back outside. Looking down, they see the last lock and chain and the purple sphere is gone, but much to their shock, so is Doremy. Landing where the prison was, they see a rift shaped like claw markings that leads to an area in the Underground. In the distance they see Doremy, all six Crystalline Crushers and a crystallized dream with a nondescript female figure in it in the waking world that's slowly but surely beginning to crumble away.
Marisa let out a low whistle at the sight. "Hoo boy. Looks like I was right, ze!" She pointed ahead. "By the time we get there, Frederica will be free!"
Reimu hesitated a moment before she nodded. "And now we'll have to fight her, too. Be careful, Marisa. We don't know what this Frederica can do." She shrugged with set teeth. "It probably has something to do with dreams, though."
Marisa fired a thumbs up. "We've beaten baku before, and more than once at that! Whatever this Freddi will be no different from the rest! Can she really be that powerful, ze?"
Reimu winced, but didn't falter. "I don't know…" She squared her shoulders. "But we're about to find out."