~Hakurei Shrine~ > Kosuzu's Grand Bookstore
MegaDoll X
Esifex:
Have I told you lately that I love you, Iced?
First you do the Battletech story, then this
Dude it's like
Have my babies
Hanzo K.:
Heh, So many great stories to read, so little time. 8)
Iced Fairy:
Chiyuri winced as Yumemi started swearing in dead languages. Usually the professor's rage subsided before she made it to Latin.
Of course their current situation was pretty shitty. Some doll had hijacked their ship forcing Chiyuri to crash the thing. Then they'd fought the damned thing for ten hours without beating it. And now they were locked out of their own ship while the automaton rewired the whole thing.
It was going to be a bitch to repair.
Still Chiyuri didn't think it was worth dredging up Aramaic over. Especially since Yumemi was sure to dump most of the work on her.
Chiyuri sighed internally and turned her focus back to the bolts keeping the door shut. That stupid doll could lock them out, but it couldn't stop them from just pulling off the door.
"Excuse me."
Chiyuri spun around, expecting to have to shoo off some more fairies. This world was infested with the little pranksters. "I told you...." Her voice trailed off when she saw two more dolls looking similar to the one that had broken in.
Chiyuri immediately drew her pistol. "Yumemi!"
"Right!" Yumemi spun and put up one of her odd cross barriers immediately. The two dolls shied back.
"Hey! We're here to help!" The blue one yelled. "Marisa told us to come here!"
Chiyuri gave Yumemi a questioning look. "Marisa did? She didn't come herself?"
"She's helping our Mother," the blue one replied.
The red one floated forward a bit. "She did say to tell you Mimi-chan is doing well."
A shudder rippled through Chiyuri at that. "Dear God, she still has that ICBM? Why did we give it to her again?"
"She stole our engine's power source," Yumemi reminded her with a sigh. The professor looked at the two floating dolls. "So I take it you two can get rid of that annoyance permanently?"
"That's what Mother said. If you can get us inside." The blue one nodded. "Oh right, we know you but you don't know us. I'm Shanghai, and this is my sister Hourai." The red doll nodded.
Yumemi thought for a moment. "Interesting. I'm intrigued as to how much of you is automaton and how much is magic, but that can wait until later. We need to stop your maverick counterpart from wrecking any more of my ship." Yumemi turned to her. "Chiyuri, get that bulkhead open will you?"
Chiyuri sighed internally again. It always came down to her didn't it? Well she was a post doc. That's what she was paid for.
She turned back to the door and decided to take the direct route. Three pistol blasts left the door on the ground.
Yumemi's groan at the damage was drowned out by the clanking of machinery that came from within.
The halls had all been turned the sickening green of tarnished copper. The floors were conveyor belts, and gears and compactors churned and crushed in a strange rhythm.
Chiyuri felt like she was going to cry. This was going to be such a pain to fix....
"Thank you miss Chiyuri," Shanghai said as she dashed in, Hourai quickly following behind.
Chiyuri nodded absently, then slowly turned towards Yumemi. "I don't suppose we can wait until they finish before starting in on this?"
Yumemi just handed her a crowbar. "Start with the gears. I'll turn off the electricity."
"Yes ma'am...."
----------
The noise was maddening.
Shanghai remembered hearing things before, but she'd never actually consciously heard things. When it had just been people talking it was fine, but the grinding of gears and pistons was an assault on her new sense of hearing.
"This being self aware thing is going to take work." Shanghai said.
"What!" Hourai yelled back.
"Nevermind!" Shanghai replied. Hourai shrugged and began moving down the halls.
Fortunately their power of flight allowed them to avoid the conveyor belts and pits that littered the area. The pounding pistons presented a slightly bigger challenge, but nothing that simple timing couldn't solve. An automaton could have bypassed the traps.
Much to her relief the pounding of metal died down as they got a little further in. "That was annoying."
Hourai nodded. "Yeah. Not too deadly though."
Suddenly pain flashed through her foot. Shanghai couldn't help but scream and fly backwards. She'd never felt anything like that before.
And then the feeling was gone. She recovered just in time to see Hourai cut the screw that burrowed out of the floor and hurt her in half. Alice must not have gotten the pain reflex completely correct.
Before Shanghai could inform Hourai of her findings she saw more screws burrowing through the walls on an attack course. "Hourai, we have to leave!"
"Right! I'll clear a path!" Hourai dashed ahead cutting as she went.
"Hey, don't go too fast!" Shanghai desperately ran after her sister. She tried to keep up, but she could tell Hourai slowed down so she could follow. It didn't help that Shanghai's shots couldn't clear out the screws as fast as Hourai's blade.
Fortunately with a bit of running they moved past the area the screws were guarding. Both of them had suffered a few more cuts from the weapons, but it didn't seem to slow either of them down after the initial hit. Maybe Alice had designed their pain reflexes correctly. After all it's not like wounds impacted a doll's abilities.
Hourai looked over at her. "Are you alright sis?"
"Yeah." Shanghai nodded.
"It's just you've been charging your weapon all this time," Hourai pointed out.
Shanghai looked down and noticed she had been holding the charge button instinctively. "Er, well it seemed like a good idea to just do that."
"I guess." The two continued on.
They made it few a few more corridors, when a huge gear fell down from the ceiling. Shanghai fired at the thing and destroyed it instantly.
"Okay, it was a good idea," Hourai said.
Shanghai smiled proudly. "Yep!"
They ran into three more of the gear traps before reaching a sliding door. The two checked their condition, then hit the button to open it.
The door opened to reveal a room with no accouterments or barriers. Just a steel box.
There in the center of the room sat a doll, one of Shanghai's sisters, her dress crimson and gold. Unlike most of the dolls, her hair had two stilettos instead of a bow. In her hands she held a circular sawblade on string she was using it as a yo-yo. She looked up and smiled as Shanghai and Hourai dashed into the room.
"Oh hey, it's Alice's favorite pets." She stood and gave them a bow, though her eyes never left the pair. "Allow me to introduce myself. I am Damascus, autonomous combat doll." Damascus made a sweeping gesture. "And welcome to my war factory!"
Shanghai and Hourai slowly split up to surround the maverick doll. "Why do you need a war factory?"
"To build an army of course." Damascus rolled her eyes. "How else can I lead an army in war?"
"A war on who?" Hourai asked. "Humans? Youkai?"
"It doesn't really matter. All that matters is I get to lead an army of conquest!" Damascus rose into the air. "I was built to be a master of war and conflict! Alice tried to hold me back, but Lady Melancholy has granted me the power to achieve my purpose. To bring war to Gensoukyo."
"But first I'll prove my strength by defeating you two. Let me show you old type dolls the power of my metal dance!"
Shanghai barely dodged the deadly blades Damascus threw at her by sliding under them. She started charging her own weapon while strafing.
Shanghai saw Hourai had somehow twisted her jump in mid air to fling herself through the blade storm. However Damascus batted aside Hourai's sword strike with her own blades. "Ha! I can fight at all ranges, unlike you two."
"Good thing there are two of us then!" Shanghai said as she fired. Damascus gasped and flipped away from the blast, but the other doll couldn't escape all of it. The impact sent her flying to the ground.
Hourai immediately attacked, but the doll master recovered her footing immediately. "Behold!" Damascus spun to parry Hourai's attack, then kept spinning and gyrating. As her mad dance continued she started throwing blades all around the room. Hourai was forced to retreat as the blade storm continued.
Shanghai began firing as fast as she could at her fallen sister while trying to dodge the blades. She was doing damage but she was taking a lot in return. Hourai moved to try to shield her, but Shanghai couldn't keep up her barrage then.
An idea struck her and she started charging her weapon again. "Hourai, dodge right!"
As Hourai shifted right Shanghai shifted left. She felt pain as a blade tore into her arm but her charged bolt struck true in return.
The mighty blast smashed into Damascus, knocking her out of her deadly dance.
Shanghai started shooting again, but Damascus flipped over the bullets. "I have you now!"
"Too slow," Hourai yelled as she dashed in from behind. Damascus whirled, parrying the blow, but that was a mistake.
Shanghai fired three shots that shattered Damascus' torso.
"No... My army... My empire.... I lost... so... soon."
The broken doll clattered to the ground with a waft of poison, leaving a glowing orb with purple lining hanging in the air.
Shanghai and Hourai both reached for the glowing orb. Shanghai felt power surge through her as the light infused her being. The pain from her wounds vanished and she felt whole once more.
When the light cleared Shanghai found her weapon had changed form. Where once it was a normal cylinder now it was a slot. Shanghai instinctively knew it would fire the razor disks Damascus used against them. Across from her Hourai looked at her blade. "Huh, it feels stronger."
Shanghai nodded. "Well we should go back and see if Mother has recovered. Or if Marisa's got any more information."
She hesitated for a moment, then reached down and picked up her broken sister. "Let's go."
Hourai raised an eyebrow. "Why?"
"Mother will want to reconstruct her later, right?"
Hourai shrugged. "I suppose. Well, let's hurry."
------
Blade Dance Doll Damascus
Purpose : Combat
My current style is a little too specialized. This doll is designed to excel in both ranged and melee combat. If this mixed assault prototype is successful I'll begin mass production.
To do: Add normal danmaku safety spells. Cutting off Marisa's head isn't allowed no matter how annoying she is at the time.
Check for possession every two weeks. While war bats are unacceptable, blades are out of fashion in the outside world.
Medicine Notes: Damascus really likes metal and crafting. It's good to have a hobby! I think she's a little too obsessed with leading an army though. We don't want to end up treating our fellow dolls as tools, right?
Hanzo K.:
Oh Meddy, even as the resident Wily/Sigma Expy, you still manage to come across as more Ineptly Adorable than a genuine danger.
She's kinda like the Animated Wily from the original Megaman cartoon in that regard. (Ruby-Spears one? Heck if I know, I just watched the stuff when I was younger.)
Comically inept at being a villain, but seems likeable despite that.
The ⑨th Zentillion:
Ooh, a pretty neat idea, this... so far, it seems to be working out pretty well, too. :3 I'm definitely interested to see where this will go~