Stage 2 – Shuno, the Speed and Financier of Team Grimm

The three girls were dumped out in an area of the Bamboo Forest of the Lost. In this region, there was a perpetual snow storm blowing in every which-way. It was chilly, but not to the point where they couldn't withstand it. In fact, it actually felt very pleasant. As they trudged through the snow, the three of them couldn't help but wonder why they ended up there…

"…Snow? At this time of year? I didn't think the Bamboo Forest even had this kind of weather. Where are we? Why did Redd send us here?"

"We are in the territory of the lively snow rabbits," Reimu explained as she took a look around, "They're winter spirits who rule over the rabbit youkai of Gensokyo. Their job is to help bring about and wrap up winter. They love the snow, so they use magic to keep the land shrouded in a perpetual snowstorm. As for why we're here…I'm not sure-wait!"

She paused mid-step and snapped her fingers as realization struck her face, "There was something about the princess of the lively snow rabbits, Shuno Wyte! She's part of Team Grimm too! Redd must have sent us here to fight her!"

"Wait, what?! Hold on a minute!" Gasped Youmu, "What's Team Grimm? What does some team have to do with Redd Ryder?"

"Redd Ryder doesn't work alone," Reimu went on, "She's actually part of a team of four monster hunters. To be honest it's actually a good thing, I shudder to think what would happen if she didn't have the other three to hold her back. Unlike her, they're actually sane."

Youmu was concerned, "Are they stronger than her?"

"Hmmm… Yes and no." Reimu rolled her hand as she thought about it, "Redd is the best at killing youkai, but in terms of overall strength, that honor goes to Goldie Lockez. As for Spell Card Battles… I'm not sure. They're probably stronger than Redd is by a long shot, though… That was one of the easiest fights I've ever had!"

"What are we going to do now, ze?" Marisa asked.

"Redd's powers will very likely keep us from fleeing," Reimu replied as they resumed walking through the snowy landscape, "We have no choice. We must track Shuno Wyte down and defeat her. And knowing our luck, we'll probably have to fight the entire team. But finding Shuno may be difficult. Marisa, could you-AH!"

Everyone stopped on a dime. At that moment, the snow that fell all around them suddenly picked up, and transformed from a soft flurry into a raging blizzard! After that, the snow stopped in midair and started to gather in a single spot above them, forming itself into a full-body sized mirror of ice.

The mirror floated to the ground and its surface began to shimmer and ripple. Out of it came a young woman dressed like an elegant ballet dancer. She wore a form fitting dark blue leotard with two thin vertical yellow stripes followed by thick red vertical stripes that were tied together with yellow lace in the middle of the leotard. Around the waist was a thin horizontal red stripe and around her hips was a frilly dark yellow miniskirt that ended in two layers of white ruffles. Her shoulders were light blue, round and puffy with a row of three large red circles. She wore a pair of light amberish gray tights with orange bow ties that are set with bright red apple-shaped rubies. She had a pair of dark yellow heeled slippers on her feet. Her hair was black long and wavy and went down to the small of her back. She wore a pair of black horn-rimmed spectacles on her face and her eyes were cerulean. She was very beautiful with full, red lips and pale skin and she had in her hand a grayish blue violet handheld mirror that ended in a swordlike point.

Reimu and Marisa both recognized her instantly: This was Shuno Wyte, the speed and financier of Team Grimm. Shuno glanced at them coldly, but not unkindly.

"Hello. So you're the ones she wants us to stop. I am Shuno Wyte. It's a pleasure to meet you all."

Reimu looked at her hesitantly. Shuno was always a very polite person, even to her enemies that she had to kill. Interacting with her was always strange.

"Uh…thanks? You're awfully polite for one of Redd's friends."

"Ah yes… Her," Shuno sighed with a hand on her hip, "My apologies for the way she's treated you. Being a monster hunter is no reason for rudeness, but if you must know, that was her in a good mood. Hard to believe, I know."

"I'll say!" Reimu agreed with her arms folded as she tapped her foot, "But never mind that! I take it we're going to have ourselves a Spell Card Battle?"

"Yes," Shuno replied with a smile as she raised her mirror and voice. "And I have the perfect battlefield for us!" The mirror glowed as she began to chant, "Mirror, Mirror standing tall, stop my foes, once and for all!"

Bright light was shone from the mirror, causing the three girls to avert their eyes with their hands in front of their faces. When the light died out, all four girls were transformed into small balls of white light that flew into the mirror and vanished. The two mirrors disintegrated and turned back into snow.

Reimu, Marisa, and Youmu found themselves in an endless swirling void of blackness and purple smoke. The ground in front of them rippled and glowed. Shuno could be seen rising out of it, pirouetting in place akin to a doll in a music box. In her right hand was a rapier made of snow with a hand mirror for a pommel.

"This is the Realm of Mirrors," Shuno called out to them as her dance slowed to a stop, "Here, I have all the power." Then, she pointed her rapier at them and went on, "I have a special song I'd like to sing just for you. It's a beautiful requiem about your upcoming failure! Now get ready!"

Reimu readied her gohei once more, "Humph. We'll see about that! Bring it on!"

Marisa also readied her broom, and asked, "Heya Reimu? Do ya think she's better at this than Redd is?"

Reimu scoffed, "Pfft! It doesn't matter! Good or bad, she's in our way. And it's high time we got her out of it!"

Given that they were in a much emptier area with more space, the girls were able to float along and cast their spells from a safe distance without worrying about collateral damage.

Reimu started off first, casting multiple danmaku that fanned out across the infinite expanse towards Shuno.

The elegant dancer of a huntress retaliated by pointing her rapier at them and shooting off a tidal wave-sized arc of snow that blocked most of the magic bullets. This allowed her to run through the danmaku with the snow acting as a shield to tank most of the hits for her. Next, she'd wave her rapier and summon several snowmen to attack and charge at the mages.

"Woah!" Reimu gasped and fired more magical bullets from her gohei. A snowman had nearly landed a punch on her, but she was able to narrowly avoid it with her swift dodging skills and zap its head off with some explosive bullets.

"Agh!" Marisa was caught off-guard by a snowman that had bum-rushed her. But she drove it off with a swift punch followed by firing off dozens of star-shaped bullets at it to send it flying backwards and put it down for good. "Where is she?!"

As it turned out, Shuno was above them and had jumped off of the wave of snow. From her hand, she tossed out several multi-colored potion bottles towards them that exploded and released a noxious fume into the air.

"Move!" Reimu called out as a warning, urging Youmu and Marisa to move out of the way as she cast a barrier to defend them from the poison.

"Yikes! Magic potions? I didn't know she was a magician as well!" Cried Youmu.

"She ain't a magician, ze! She's just really good at makin' potions an' stuff!"

Shuno took advantage of Reimu letting her guard down and charged her, striking swiftly with her rapier and only barely landing a hit upon her. "You're pretty quick. I see why Redd wasn't able to keep up with you!"

"That and she was a complete pushover!" Reimu dodged a swipe of the sword by flipping backwards and firing off more bullets that exploded in front of Shuno. "Like you!"

"Rrrgh!"

The elegant snow rabbit grunted as she held her rapier in front of herself to block them, but was overwhelmed by the blast and sent flying backwards, spinning until she gathered herself and stood upright. "...looks like I'll have to get serious."

Shuno then activated her first Spell Card, Mirror Mirror "Poison Laces".

Upon activation, she summoned a blizzard that swept the girls up in a massive flurry of ice and snow as she waved her rapier. Snow followed them as they all got swept up in the updraft and Reimu had to think quickly in order to counter this.

"Ze! Look out!" Marisa yelped as she clutched her broom.

But Reimu was already on top of it. She watched closely as they floated up with the snow and kept herself calm as she calculated the exact moment to retaliate. "Okay. I can do this." And with a quick flick of her gohei, she kept her eyes steeled upon the snowballs.

Then, just as they came down and started to fall as giant spiked snowflakes, Reimu fired off more magic bullets to explode each one in mid-air before it could land upon them. But she had to admit, she had actually broken a sweat compared to their fight with Redd.

"Damn this is bit harder…"

Once the blizzard had died down, Reimu and Marisa found themselves surrounded by a ring of Shuno that quickly began firing blasts of snow at them. They tried to blast the clones, but they just exploded into snow and reformed. They were quickly starting to get overwhelmed, but Reimu quickly spotted one that looked… Different.

"Marisa!" cried out Reimu, "Let's try hitting the one with snow spinning around it!"

"On it, ze!" And she hit the copy with one of her strongest Spell Cards.

Sure enough, the blast destroyed all the copies and even seemed to seriously hurt the real Shuno. But she just melted into the ground and reemerged a good distance away, drinking a potion that healed herself and then another one that created a protective barrier. She then created giant snowballs that grew bigger and bigger as they got closer and closer.

Dodging these snowballs was a pain, and very soon Marisa had had enough and flew forward while firing off more explosive stars while riding on her broom.

"Okay you're not as bad as I thought! I actually had to put effort in for that one, ze!"

One of the star bits destroyed the barrier and the battle switched to close-quarters with Shuno charging right at Marisa and swiping at her with her sword.

"You'll never get that lamp back!"

Marisa gasped and weaved around the sword strikes, earning a few small scrapes in the process.

"Grgh! That lamp is important ta our friend, ze! You won't get away with this!"

Marisa dealt a heavy punch to Shuno's gut before leaping backwards on her broom, narrowly avoiding a gigantic spiked snowflake Shuno summoned around her.

"Urgh!"

The icy huntress was stunned for a moment and was unable to dodge the onslaught of bullets slung her way that exploded around her, and sent her flying through the empty space.

"Nice one!" Reimu called out as she flew up to Marisa. "Think she'll give up yet?"

"I'm not so sure…" Marisa grumbled as she glanced at the princess dressed in white.

Sure enough, she had gotten up and began to retaliate from a distance. She activated her second Spell Card, Mirror Mirror "Poison Comb".

Around Reimu and Marisa, a long and seemingly endless hall of mirrors appeared out of nowhere. In an instant, a small bunch of lasers fired off from her rapier that bounced off and zapped against each one!

"Look out, Marisa!"

Reimu called out as she ducked down. Even though they were in an infinite space, there was no escape from the endless hall of mirrors. The girls floated through and tried to avoid the lasers bouncing off but soon realized it was a fool's errand.

"Darn it!" Marisa yelped as they floated along, "I don't think punching these would be a good idea. What should we do?"

"I've got it," Reimu aimed her gohei at the mirrors, "If we can somehow overload them with our own danmaku, we should be able to shatter them one by one."

"It's worth a shot!"

The two would begin firing off loads of their own bullets at the mirrors. Each time they did, they made sure to duck under them so they would end up shooting themselves. Soon enough, after enough bouncing back and forth, the bullets would shatter the mirrors and leave them exposed to a sudden flurry of woodland critters made of snow!

"Aw, they're so cute-wait-" Marisa gushed over them, but quickly realized they weren't looking to play!

"Get back, Mari!" Reimu yelled as she zapped each one with her bullets, "Grrgh…where did this loser go?!"

Suddenly, Shuno dashed towards them, firing off more waves of snow. But Marisa stood in front of Reimu and blocked Shuno's sword attacks with her broom before sending her backwards with a kick that she followed up with enough bullets to shatter her snowflake shield. Reimu would then trade places with her, letting Marisa handle the squirrels and deer made of snow while Reimu summoned a swarm of danmaku that struck Shuno in a pillar formation, resulting in a combination attack that she couldn't escape from!

"Agh!" Shuno screamed as she fell backwards and lost grip on her sword. At this point, all she had was her last resort: her final Spell Card, Mirror Mirror "Poison Apple".

Before the girls could react, a massive mirror appear beneath their feet that launched the girls into the air as Shuno summoned a total of sixteen other mirrors around them that would fire poisonous apples at them as she leapt into the air…

"Ze!" Marisa called out as she started blasting the apples with her bullets.

"I see it!" Reimu called out in response.

Shuno was now above them and had summoned a massive apple tree made of ice! What's worse, it was falling at them and falling at them FAST. The two mages acted quickly. While Marisa took care of the apple projectiles with her own bullets, Reimu flew into the air and fired a swarm of her own bullets at the tree. Both of them put a ton of effort into their attacks, and in the end…

"ARGH!"

With a massive explosion, the ice-tree exploded, and Shuno was caught in the blast. When the final blow was struck, Shuno's rapier shattered. The lively snow rabbit started to glow white and exploded into a bright light that forced the girls to shield their eyes behind their hands. After the light faded away Reimu and Marisa were back in the Bamboo Forest and Shuno was in front of them, down on her knees and breathing heavily.

"Argh… Huff… How-How did you beat me?" she muttered in disbelief.

"If it's any consolation, you did a lot better than Redd did! Now let us pass already!"

"I can't," Shuno replied, "it's not up to me."

Youmu stomped up to her and groaned, "Well then whose call is it?!"

Shuno pointed behind them and answered, "Her's."

The three girls turned around to see Redd and Eburinferuton standing right behind them.

Redd glared and pointed at them angrily and used her hunting knife to slash open a rift that sucked them in before they had a chance to react. Once the rift closed up, Eburinferuton flew off while Redd walked over to Shuno and helped her up.

"You know Redd," Shuno muttered as she took Redd's hand and stood up, "we really need to get better at these Spell Card Battles. This is just getting embarrassing."

"Yeah, you're right." Redd sighed, "After this job is over, we'll start working on getting better. It's not fair that my big sister is the only one of us who is good at them," she grumbled with her arms folded.

Shuno leaned over and asked, "Do you think Beauty can stop them?"

"Well the truth is, we don't actually need to stop them. We just need to stall them. And from what I've gathered, we've done a good job so far!"

"Really!?" Shuno muttered, then smiled, "That's good to know. I hate failure. Good luck, Beauty! You'll need it!"