(( Hey, kids! You know how I do all that bitching about Touhou grimdark? GUESS WHAT!! Here's some crappy Touhou grimdark! I wasn't even trying to do that at all - all I tried to do was novelize part of a Touhou RP that's nowhere near the level of derpiness. Then I watched The Thing.
Blah blah lame first chapter blah blah. Someone please beat some sense into me. I promise to write something else, something actually Touhou and not daaark and heaaaavy. ))
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It was an unusually quiet night, but Reisen didn't care, decorating the silence with an old Lunarian jody call as she began packing everything away. The new peace and quiet was kind of unnerving, especially after what seemed like a decade of medical service to crowds that took up village blocks. It was the first time she had seen the storage deck half empty.
The latest trip to the Human Village had been... noisy. Reimu was gone on another incident-solving quest, and it seemed the sickness spirits of all Gensokyo took a vacation here in her absence. The old farts all suddenly had back pains and fraying bones, even when most of them had been hauling stones bigger than themselves and cutting down trees thicker than a rocket booster the week before. Kids were getting colds left and right, and one had come down with pneumonia. Even after a dosage of Eirin's medicine got them back on their feet, all the parents were paranoid, shouting questions every damn time she got out of the little makeshift clinic she always set up smack-dab in the middle of the village.
She made a note to ask her mistress about anti-hysteria lozenges for the next trip.
Only tonight did they finally stop swarming her, with not a soul in sight ? or even in the streets. The village seemed finally at peace, or something a lot like it it. She heard whispers from some of the militia about seeing bandits moving into the forest and setting up some weird base, or trying to find some sort of hidden treasure.
Ugh. Bandits. Oh, sure, Gensokyo could grudgingly put aside their differences and hunt beasts and ferals to near-extinction (something that really ticked Eirin off), but they couldn't get rid of a few hundred human criminals who couldn't even operate simple firearms. Reisen was godsdamn sure Yukari had something to do with it, especially with the last bandit purge the gap hag personally spearheaded. Mokou or Tewi would deal with them... if there were any. If there was anything Mokou hated more than the princess, it was the bandits, and she tended to save surprises she didn't use on the Princess for them. Tewi was much less violent, leading groups of them into pits for Mokou or whatever counted as the village's law enforcement to find, or swindling them out of their hard earned loot.
What sort of lame conspiracy was that? What sort of bandit army (that being an oxymoron, the bandits would rather shoot each other for the change in their pockets than work together) moved into the forest for massive deforestation operations, knowing full well that they'd end up as lost as, oh, everyone else who tried to waltz through the forest? Wait. Answer: none at all. If there were bandits to waylay her ? which there very occasionally were, usually to either get her medicine as she came to the village, or get her cash as she came back ? she still carried her old Phalanx. Obsolete, sure, but it packed a punch, and the thermal clip would last forever. She hadn't used it in a long time, and she was damn sure she wouldn't need to for quite a while. And given how many humans tended to take a loan option with Eirin, and human medicine having adverse effects on youkai (and vice versa), most bandits simply gave up on trying to rob her of anything ? if they survived going crazy or getting shot.
Besides, she had been rushing all over the human village each night, and her night vision never failed her whenever she took the time to just look around on her short five-minute breaks. Nope, no shady looking men moving ominously through the dark ever crossed her line of sight, and she was trained in sniper spotting. The only person she ever saw go into the forest were ? surprise ? woodcutters and the occasional youkai merchant, and they all came and went during the day. Night was frightening in Gensokyo, to say the least.
She did, however, hear something more worrying that hadn't been a result of overactive imaginations. The lumberjacks hauled in a lot less for the week. It wasn't the kami or curse gods again ? they said they were finding massive clearings in the woods where acres of gigantic trees stood a day before. That would be of interest to Eirin, who was rather protective of the forest's biosphere. Sounded like more youkai punks or another wonderful Incident to harass Reimu over.
And with that, the storage deck finished its violation of physics, beeped once to confirm everything stuffed in it was safely in whatever pocket dimension they were whisked off to, and hovered to Reisen's back, fitting its straps around her snugly.
Gods bless outdated Lunarian technology.
Aside from a few kids breaking curfew running around her, chanting their goodbyes in sing-song and smiling like all good kids should, no one else came out to see her off, and even though stores stayed open and lights shone brightly from homes, the village felt like it was closed. Strange. It felt like everyone was trying to hide indoors. The guards were unusually alert, their eyes boring holes into everything that moved. One guard stationed at the very edge of the village waved her off.
"What's up with the village tonight?" Reisen asked, conversationally.
"Some bandit sightings today. All of them too far to catch..." The guard flipped up his visor and pinched the bridge of his nose, the bulky metal-and-bone joints clinking. "Thanks for the aid, doc. Wish it would have calmed down the folks around here, but... It's like this every time Reimu leaves somewhere, bad shit starts happening and people get the heebie-jeebies. Maybe this place was a gambling den in our past lives or something and we're just getting the karmic load..."
Reisen shrugged, said goodbye, and marched off down the lonely trail back to Eientei.
"Good luck out there," the guard called after her. "Don't be a stranger!"
Reisen loved walking through the forest at night. Where regular humans and youkai saw a place to get horribly ripped apart by beasts, she saw nature at its finest. (Granted, regular humans and youkai couldn't manipulate wavelengths to make themselves invisible.) It was better than the nature holos she watched at home. Here, in perfect clarity, she saw beak dogs at peace, great herds of elephants move through the forest, bears paw at rivers in search of fish, giant reptiles sleep soundly, and all the birds of the world (and some others) sing and cry.
Well. Except for one problem.
The problem was that the birds were silent. All of them. No night sparrow's distant cries or the hoots of the diamond owls, no mockingbird's calls, or the screech of distant pterodactyls. Okay, those weren't birds, but still...
So the night was unusually... even more quiet. Reisen paused, looking at the bamboo shoots and fighting her gut instinct to run all the way back to the village, singing that old jody call about the Marine and the Knight.
Tiny baby steps forward, lest she fall in another of Tewi's damned pits. Tiny, tiny, tiny... godsdammit, Tewi...
A burst of movement, someone thrashing through the forest. Before Reisen could say anything or even reac-
"'Sup, doc?" Tewi asked nonchalantly as she walked up to Reisen, munching on a carrot. "Did you see a bunch of humans rushing through here, screaming like Kaguya showed them her tentacle porn collection?"
Reisen didn't respond, staring over the smaller bunny at something she could only see, as if she had also seen the princess's tentacle porn collection.
"Hel-looooo, Earth to Reisen." She waved a hand in front of Reisen's face, snapped her fingers, and got out her mochi hammer-
"Godsdammit, Tewi!" Reisen flinched away as soon as she saw the dreaded instrument, breaking out into nervous chuckles.
Tewi rolled her eyes. "Works every time. You're predictable, Reisen, seriously." Tewi stuffed the rest of the carrot in her mouth, chewing unnecessarily loudly as she walked the long road back to Eientei. "So, how'd your vacation go?"
Reisen hurried behind, huffing. "It was awful! Most of the village got sick, I thought I was going to get trampled every thirty minutes, and they kept getting sick, even with the immunoboosters!"
"Mmm. Nobody cares. But hey, wanna see something cool?"
"Let me guess, another pit-"
The earth opened up and Reisen tumbled face-first into a dreaded pit, courtesy of hers truly. "Yep!" Tewi called down, grinning. "Also, look what I bought," Tewi said, holding something aloft and ignoring Reisen's climbing predicament. Reisen hauled herself out of the pit and got a good look at it...
"A shotgun, Tewi? Really?" Tewi fulfilled the stereotype of overcompensation ? flat chest, big gun. The thing Tewi held in her hands was what the humans called a "sawed off shotgun", and it was half as big as her. Hell, the barrels looked like Tewi could stick her head in one of them comfortably.
"Yep, yep. 'Course, I had the kappa do some weird upgrading stuff to it, so it holds a ton of shells and supposedly will tear a hole even in one of those giant armadillo thingies. I didn't really care about what they blabbed about, science just ain't for me, but whatever, this makes bandits lose bladder control when I jam it in their faces," Tewi squealed. "It's like I'm a goddamn force a' friggin' nature with this thing!"
"And why, exactly, do you need a shotgun? Did you rip off another bandit crew?"
"Nope. But while you were gone, I think someone sucked out all the luck in the forest, because every five minutes, I couldn't move a meter without running into some thug prick who wanted me to hand over my money. Do I look like I carry money? I don't even have pockets!"
"...Then where the Hell do you keep that shotgun?"
"Are you implying something, Reisen? And you say I'm the one with the guttermind."
Reisen ignored her. "Anyway, human militia kept talking about seeing bandits move into the forest..."
"Ooooh, scary, scary. Come to think of it, they did act like they were looking for something. Dunno what it is, though. Probably for more stuff from the moon." Despite Eientei's best efforts to tell everyone that there wasn't anything in the forest, scavengers and some foolhardy archeologists braved scouring the forest around Eientei, hoping to come across any Lunarian technology dropped during the first Lunar War. Half of the people Tewi and Mokou led out of the forest were these sort, and if the beasts of the forest reached them before the two did, they'd be lucky to even find half a corpse at all.
"I hope you don't plan on shooting everyone you come across with it, because I still remember the time I tried to teach Basic Firearms 101 to your bunnies."
"AHAH! HAHAHA! AAHAHAHAHAH! No. This is just to scare 'em off. I like it when they piss their pants whenever I pull it out, but I think it'd break my arm if I ever fired it. What, you think I'm going to go postal?"
"The day you do, I hope for a quick death."
Tewi grinned impossibly wide. "Don't think that'll happen."
"Forget I asked..."
The night turned to silence again, and quite frankly, it scared the living daylights out of Reisen. Listening to Tewi's inane babble actually sounded like a good idea. Even Tewi was nervous, fiddling with the shotgun that poorly fit under her dress.
Suddenly, everything quaked ? the bamboo thrashed violently, the ground shook - Reisen yelped (possibly the worst thing a trained Lunarian soldier could do) and dropped to the ground, duck and cover (standard Lunarian protocol for explosions) while a a firestorm lifted off in the distance, Tewi emptying four shotgun shells into the dark, screaming wildly.
And then nothing. The night returned to its damned silence like nothing ever happened here.
"I swear to the Gods this isn't a prank," Tewi muttered, working her bruised arm and sliding new shells into the shotgun. Reisen, understandably, didn't believe a word.
The forest began moving again ? and this time, countless humans ran past, screaming and shouting incoherently, and before Reisen and Tewi could react, they were gone, the sound of rustling bamboo their only companions.
"Yep, that's them, alright," Tewi muttered. The two rabbits turned to chase after the fleeing humans when something rustled behind them.
They had nearly shot the man as soon as he crashed through the bamboo forest and out into the path, Tewi keeping her shotgun trained on the man as he limped on broken bones towards the two. Even in the dim moonlight, his wretched wounds were visible. Gaping wounds bled red everywhere, spilling every time the man moved. Every breath sounded like a broken machine, and blood poured from his eyes and mouth.
"Please," he begged, voice weak with pain and fear tinging his words. "Please, help me..."
The man collapsed, gurgling from his ruined throat.
Seconds ticked away, none of the rabbits moving an inch.
"I swear to the Gods this is not a prank," Tewi whimpered. Reisen snapped out of the fear rooting to her spot, cursing herself for hesitating and forgetting everything Eirin taught her about emergency treatment, but when she ran up to the man and turned him him over, she knew even Eirin and her miracle machines wouldn't save him. A crushed chest, severe blood loss, punctured lungs, infections everywhere... he looked like a horror show extra. Judging from how dirty and torn the clothes were, he managed to walk a good deal. How'd he managed getting this far?
"Hey, loony, you sure you should be that close to him? The guy looks like a fucking z-"
The man jerked up with an animalistic snarl, suddenly sharpened teeth snapping. She kicked away from the man as he tried to claw at her, half-lunging, half-crawling through the dirt. All she could do was scream like a little girl, dragging herself away and uselessly aiming the gun at the thing. Her trigger finger felt like it was made out of goddamn stone, not budging an inch despite ever neuron in her brain firing to get it to move. Remember your training, she told herself. Breath, aim, shoot, breath, aim, shoot, it's not fucking working-
Both of the rabbits trained their guns on the... whatever the fuck it was now, and they weren't firing. Tewi's mind raced for an excuse - maybe the man was only having a psychotic break and her imagination fucking covered the man in tar, come on, Tewi, think! Maybe she watched too many zombie movies and her mind was playing tricks on her? What if shewas the one having a psychotic break? What if it was Eirin pulling a prank on her? Something to do with getting fucked with a reversal of godsdamned fortune?! A thousand different excuses flew through her mind-
She saw malevolent, tarry black goo force itself out of the man's mouth with a horrible, choking cough. It quickly spread, bursting out of visibly engorged veins and arteries, changing everything it spread to into a charred black and warping the human into something more alien and inhuman. Ragged, needle-like teeth opened with a snarl at Tewi, providing enough incentive to pull the trigger.
The blast tore the path and the surrounding bamboo to pieces, turning everything from the waist up into a fine mist and nearly breaking her arm (oh thank kami-sama it didn't break), and the gunshot echoed into the night, fading away.
Tewi stared, bug-eyed, at the remains as the tar that had came out of the man's mouth oozed out into the ground and slunk its way up the path.
Their eyes followed the blob to it.
"You gotta be fucking kidding me," Tewi moaned.
An amorphous mass engulfed the road ahead, completely motionless as the puddle crawled up to it, sucking itself in with a terrible noise. Tewi fired again, superpowered slugs blasting the blob apart, but it reformed, giving off a disgusting squelch.
The thing bared its teeth noiselessly ? rows and rows and rows of them, wickedly sharp... If it wasn't for the teeth, it could almost be described as a grimace, but it was too... animistic, too primal, too inhuman.
And the next thing the two rabbits knew, they were thrashing through the forest, their gunshots piercing the night, screaming, hollering, luck nor wavelengths never throwing off the snarls of things and a noise so squalid, like something wet sucked through a sewer drain, following them like the hounds of the seven hells.
After both forever and an eternity, Reisen stood frozen at the main entrance of Eientei, gun thrust out at the forest, while Tewi gibbered incoherently to the Earth rabbits, never once noticing Eirin rushing out, worried to high heaven, Kaguya by her side and shouting questions the two couldn't hear over their own thrumming heartbeats and the roar of adrenaline.
Reisen screamed for them to get back, that they were going to come here and attack at any moment, but the things never came into her sight.
