2. The Noob Wakes Once More : The Re-Up

(It's not a sequel. Just the Re-Up)

~~~~ 2hu Frikmania : ALICE MARGATROID'S PERSPECTIVE ~~~~

I hope Patchouli knows how to deal with this.

Currently, I am on the path to the Scarlet Devil Mansion with a… slight problem.

Whirrr…

Floating next to me is a spinning, red cube of doom. One wrong move and it'll all go haywire. "Let's hope it doesn't have to come to that."

After a bit of walking I notice something weird sticking out of a nearby tree trunk. An odd blue arm that stuck out like a sore thumb. Or in this case a sore arm… Get it? No? Anyway…

Fwi-clip. With a bit of telekinesis, my strings coil around it. "Might make for a good reagent later".

I attempted to pull the metal arm out proving difficult. With even greater vigor, I pulled the arm out along with a humanoid figure.

It was a person in a multicolored shirt, the kind of shirt you'd only find outsiders wearing. The metal arm seems to be his actual arm so using it for materials was out of the question.

He looks completely fine despite being stuck in that tree. His shirt has a few holes but overall he looks fine. Can't just leave someone out here in the forest though.

"Hey, wake up. Why were you sleeping in a tree?" I questioned the man.

"..." The man, still "asleep", could not answer my question. Is he seriously just gonna stay like this?

"Come on, wake up already." I asked again, but the person- "..." still did not respond.

"This is going nowhere…" I pick up a nearby stick and give him a nice good wallop.

Whack! Ouch, that might leave a mark.

"AH WHAT THE FACK!" The man got up immediately, feeling at the slight red mark visible through his clothes.

"Took you long enough." Reimu would kill me if I let this dude stay here.

"Not cool bro. Why would you hit me with a stick?" He questioned while he slowly got up.

"My name is Alice Margatroid, not 'bro'. Thank you very much." I continued. "What were you doing in a tree trunk?"

With a satirical tone, he explained. "If it wasn't obvious already, I didn't sleep in a tree by choice." He stood up on both legs.

"An angry flower mommy yeeted me all the way here. I alt f4'dout from the landing and I guess I landed in a tree!" He replied with weird words I had never heard of.

What in the world is a yeet…? Wait, I'm getting side tracked.

First, I need to seek Patchouli's help for this thing.

Whirr… But I can't just leave him to his own devices, especially since he's an outsider.

"I take it you do not want to stay here either? It's very common for humans to go missing in this forest. Follow me, I will show you the way out." I reply helpfully.

He responds in a weirdly serious tone. "No. I wanna stay in this forest, crawl into a hole and die."

I shrug. "Oh well. Suit yourself." I turn to leave and continue walking to the mansion. I hope he actually does follow me though.

The man begins walking in the same direction as me. Guess he'd rather not stay here.

~~~~ 2hu Frikmania : MARK'S PERSPECTIVE ~~~~

Hm..? Why did I just get an uncanny feeling of deja vu? It's like I've already been here…!

…

"Meh." I throw my arms to the side. "It's probably nothing!"

Alice yells from down the path. "Are you coming or not?"

"I'm on my way to becoming fabulously late. Only the best can do it like me!" I could go pro with this.

I see her facepalm in the distance.

~~~~ 2hu Frikmania ~~~~

We're out of the woods now, but we're still not out of the woods yet! Instead of being in the forest of doom, we're at a giant mansion of great redness. It's got a brick wall around the entire structure, probably to keep the punch monkeys out.

Alice approaches a certain someone guarding the gate. Said someone is also sleeping…!

"Meiling, mind if you open the gate for us?" Whirr…!

That weird red colored box floats above them menacingly as they talk.

She opens one eye. "Hm..? Oh, it's just you." I'm gonna take a wild guess and say this Meiling dude is chinese.

Meiling continues leaning on the wall. "Do you need something from Patchouli?"

Whirrrr~! The box starts spinning louder and faster.

Alice points to something above her. "You see the box above us? It's elemental."

While they talk stuff out, I see something semi-interesting to the side.

A fluffy looking thing running a stall sits by itself. It looks friendly.

Idea! I jump up as high as I can and land on one knee. "Jonathan Fitzgerald IV, what must I do to gain your daughter's hands in marriage?!"

"no friend" Holy shit it speaks!

"would you like to buy some wares" And it's offering me it's wares!

"Sure!" I wonder if it sells dust.

The fluffle placed its fin on the counter. It's got fins for hands and feet btw. It lays down items one by one…

A red arm similar to the one I have, a green arm, and a white arm.

"they're not friendly" It assures me.

"How much for that red one?" I point to the left most arm.

"five hundred thousand yen" I bet I could make that much money in like a few days.

"What does it do though?" I need to know if it's worth it though!

"knuckle blaster" It informs me of the goods. "hold punch to blast shells inside the knuckles, causing a shockwave that knocks surrounding enemies away"

"How about that green one?" I point to the arm in the middle.

"whiplash. a winch with a spear. hold to throw, release to pull.

can pull light enemies and items, will get pulled to heavy enemies and grapple points. is not a reference to the movie Whiplash" The fluffle gives a fun fact at the end.

"How much…?"

"one million yen"

Guess we've gotta rob the mansion's treasury!

I turn around and start power walking to the gate. "Alice, we must slay the spire. Make haste!"

Alice watches me try and fail to push open the gate. "So, umm… Do you think you could..?"

I furiously bang on the gate with both arms after failing to open it. "This gate will not hold me!"

…

Meiling blinks. "Ah, right... I'll open the gate for you."

"Sorry for the trouble.."

~~~~ 2hu Frikmania ~~~~

It's a frikin parade in my city! We open the doors to the mansion, guns ablazing.

Except we have no guns. And there is no parade. Just fairy maids in their floofy uniforms cleaning…

I slowly turn my head to Alice who was just beside me. "Where are the deadly rape fairies I've been hearing about…?

"The what?" Her face becomes flustered. "O-oh. You must be talking about that one incident way back. Reimu and the others had already solved it."

Something like that actually happened? Damn if only I was born a year earlier.

"hello friends" A fluffle interrupts my derailed train of thought

Whirrrrr~! Alice sighs, slouching a little. "Dust devils.." And continues walking.

Walking where? We'll find out after this short commercial break.

"Hurry along now. We can't keep delaying this 'short' visit to Patchouli." She ushers me hurriedly.

And so we walked. And walked. And walked even more. So much so that Alice gave up and started flying. If only I could do that.

I point toward a familiar looking doorway. "Hey, it's the lobby again!"

Sakuya appears out of nowhere."Take a left, left, left, left, right, then go down the hall."

I jump in surprise. "Woah! Where did you-?"

"Are you gonna stand there or are you gonna solve an incident?" Sakuya disappears as fast as she appeared.

And then we reached the library after listening to her instruction!

…

"Didn't we move a bit too fast?" I ask Alice.

Alice brushes it off and moves towards the giant doors. "Just Sakuya and her time manipulation… Nothing new."

Sakuya's got time acceleration too? Frikin epic.

Whirrr~! The cube stops spinning but it doesn't stop making noise.

Alice opens the door after it "scans" her. It'd be scanning if the door wasn't made of wood. I take notice of an unsightly patch of filling to the side. Did someone try to break into the room?

"Alright, let's go." And so we made the trek to whoever owns this gigantic library! Alice leads.

Walking without care would be nice if I didn't care…! Hm.? A vanilla scent permeates through the air.

The pretty blonde next to me starts walking in the direction of the smell. "Oh, so they're this way..."Alice seems to know the smell all too well.

Eventually, we find two humanoid figures conversing at a table. One's got a killer body figure though!

Goddamn, a succubus! Hot as shit in fiction, even hotter in person!

Our stealth mission turned into a loud one after- Whirrr~! That.

"Hm, Alice? What brings you here?" Purple (wo)man stares at Alice, barely glancing over at me.

Alice points at the- Whirrr~! Okay, we get it! "So we've got a slight problem." WHIRRRR~! "That problem being this thing."

Crash! The door from where we came from suddenly busts open. "Yo, Patchy!"

Reimu walks in after her and stares at the fallen doors.. "...That was necessary."

Something floats inside the room with her. Whirrrr~! Oh shid they gots a cube too! A blue one at that.

Patchy sighs. "The door was half open… You did not need to do that." She closes that big book she's reading. "So? What ungodly force might be attracting all of you to my library at this current moment."

Whirrr~! Whirr~! The cubes make their presence known.

They all stare at Patchy like she's gonna do something about it. "What? Wait, did all of you come here thinking I knew something about it?"

We all said in unison. "Yeah, basically."

She holds a hand to her forehead. "Ugh… Alright then. To start, where did you get these cubes from? I can sense a large amount of latent mana inside them."

Marisa goes first. "Well, we were on our way to Eientei for reasons that I can't explain. While passing the mansion, the fluffle at the stall started speaking… in a weird way, ze!"

"They always talk weird, Marisa." Reimu cuts in. "It went a little more like-"

~~~~ 2hu Frikmaniac : REIMU HAKUREI'S PERSPECTIVE ~~~~

(About 10 minutes ago)

Marisa floats upside down on her broom as we pass the mansion. "Hey, Reimu. Don't you think the fluffle is acting a bit weirder than usual?"

"nine points. polarized light" She's right. It looks kind of serious. "crow and shomyo chant" As serious as a ball of fluff can be anyway… Did it always have a blindfold though?

I raise an eyebrow. "Is it chanting something?"

Marisa immediately sits upright on her broom."This smells like an incident! We should go tell Patchy!" She was waiting for an excuse to see Patchouli wasn't she…?

"Fine… Let's just hurry it up before someone destroys the shrine again." I have had it with my shrine being in constant disrepair.

The fluffle paused in place… How eerie.

~~~~ 2hu Frikmaniac : MARK'S PERSPECTIVE ~~~~

"And that's how we got here." Reimu finishes her story.

That sounded pretty believable! I should tell them that.-

A fluffle with a black blindfold stands atop the bookshelves. "the gap between with and without"

Patchouli doesn't falter in studying the blue cube though. She keeps her focus steady. "I see… Though this cube has a lot of mana, it needs to be activated. It's missing another variable to activate." She looks at the red cube. "That one too… It is also missing a variable. But when you bring the two together…"

She notices something. Something was off. Her eyes go wide. "Everyone get down!"

Fwi-shoo. A magic circle appears above the two cubes.

The fluffle speaks more vividly. "two hundred percent" WHIRR~! The red cube slowly merges with the blue one!

I start flailing my arms around. "What is going on?!"

Reimu and Marisa look completely nonchalant with the situation. Alice, Patchy and me on the other hand? We're panicking. Trust.

Alice uses a string to piece multiple fluffles together. "Hm." She's no scoping with a string!

With multiple fluffles on a string, she weaves it together to make a wall of fluffles! Very high defense.

A painful ringing came afterwards. The two cubes combined into a gigantic purple cube crackling with lightning. "hollow purple" WHIRRRRR~ Ring.!

Fwi-shoo. The magic circle above it activates teleporting the giant purple cube into the unknown.

~~~~ 2hu Frikmaniac ~~~~

END OF CHAPTER 2

MC: Mark, the generic introvert,

PRIMARY WEAPON :

The Feedbacker: The Feedbacker: a blue metal arm that has a tendency to make people trip on it, deals 1 damage with punches, deals 5 damage with parries. Parries full heal. INVENTORY :

4 plastic cups: useful for the good of nothing.

SKILLS:

Nothing (yet)

PARTY:

Mark, still forever alone

~~o~~

~~~~ AUTHOR'S NOTE ~~~~

Gojo Fluffle

Bottom text

We'll be seeing alot of random bullshit from here on out. You take the blue pill, the story ends. You exit and believe whatever you want to. You take the red pill, you get to stay in wonderland, and I show you how deep the rabbit hole goes.

Big credits to Brad aka u/4552286/SKOOLATOON