Shenanigans in a Magical Forest

Created: Tue 15 Jun 2010 02:51:56 EDT / Modified: Tue 07 Sep 2010 03:50:17 EDT

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A youthful but otherwise Perfectly Ordinary witch, Marisa Kirisame, arrives at her old home in the Forest of Magic in Gensōkyō; her plans for the day involve picking mushrooms from the Forest for magical experiments.

Unmarked spoilers follow!

Condensed index of "Shenanigans in a Magical Forest"

The Summary

After getting out the necessary utensils, she leaves her house and is promptly set upon by a pair of nameless fairies, which she quickly dispatches.

The first mushroom she acquires is a Useless Black Spotted Mushroom (her own term). She then discovers a gap in the forest left by a fallen tree, and, realizing that she hasn't been in that part of the forest before, she flies through and discovers a grove containing a number of mushrooms, most of which have been frozen.

Meanwhile, a little while earlier, legendarily-stupid ice-fairy Cirno decided to travel from the Misty Lake to the Forest of Magic with the intentions of showing off a Spell Card. She promptly gets lost and stumbles upon the same mushroom-filled grove Marisa had. She tries to eat a mushroom, but a dark figure suddenly appears behind her and detonates the explosive magic suffusing the mushroom, then knocks her out.

Marisa arrives on the scene and discovers that the culprit is none other than Mima, a ghost/spirit who taught Marisa how to use magic and is now more of an enemy. An altercation ensues, in which Mima reveals the existence of an Incident, but denies direct involvement and refuses to reveal anything more than that Marisa will discover that she is "the star." Her recalcitrance provokes Marisa to violence. During the fight, Cirno awakens, and as Marisa begins to gain the upper hand, Cirno starts flipping out, and Mima leaves, claiming that Cirno is being too noisy.

Marisa recruits Cirno in assisting her with the mushroom-hunt, then calls Reimu Hakurei, the Shrine Maiden of Gensōkyō's Hakurei Shrine, via CODEC (also known as KAWADEC) to tell her about the Incident. However, there is no response, so she calls Alice Margatroid (her lover) and then Nitori Kawashiro (the co-inventor of the CODEC device) to let them know about it. Nitori was acting strange, however. Marisa collects the mushrooms, realizing she only needs a few more.

Meanwhile, Alice sits alone in her home with Marisa, surrounded by dolls, experimenting in magic which allows her to extract, divide, recombine, and reinsert souls. She discovers that Marisa has already made lunch for her, accompanied by a love note. She soon finishes the spell, when suddenly a portal with eyes opens, startling the dolls, and there is a knock on the door.

Alice answers, flanked by several heavily-armed dolls, and meets Yukari Yakumo, who was responsible for sealing away Gensōkyō in its own pocket dimension. Yukari states that she wants to talk with Alice about her and Marisa's plans — specifically, whether or not they actually know what they're doing with their plans. They are distracted by a strange presence which Yukari periodically senses coming from Alice, and she resolves to investigate it after reassuring herself of Alice and Marisa's intentions and competence.

Elsewhere, floating above the trees, Mima abruptly announces to someone unspecified that something unspecified cannot affect her, and tells them to focus on someone else.

Marisa and Cirno, meanwhile, have now collected 43 mushrooms. Marisa gives one of them to Cirno, and reads a note from Alice. Cirno then remembers she wanted to show off her Spell Card, and challenges Marisa. Cirno opens with a variation on the Spell Card which was partially responsible for her "fame," given that it has a safe-spot right in front of her. Marisa, however, remembers that the "safe spot" is a trap, and dispatches her with a pumpkin-pie-themed Spell Card. Marisa gets a sudden urge to check her Spell Card inventory, then heads homeward to do experiments on the mushrooms, leaving Cirno to her own devices.

Meanwhile, Nitori has been making her way to the Hakurei Shrine. Her Optical Camoflage unit's battery having failed, she elects to approach the Hakurei shrine in plain view. She reaches the Shrine (at about the same time gets home), and meets Reimu, who explains that her KAWADEC-unit is broken; Nitori gives a brief summary of the Incident as they know it and prepares to fix the KAWADEC device. After some silliness, Nitori repairs the device. She asks about the fact that Reimu is wearing actual miko-robes. Reimu replies that she's now acting her age.

Around the same time, Yukari takes her leave from Alice's house. She promptly catches the entity responsible for the Incident, but decides to play along. She sends her shikigamis Chen and Ran Yakumo on a search, then goes to pester Mima. She catches the mysterious entity trying to get her to grab a mysterious pumpkin.

Marisa, meanwhile, sets up shop, and recieves a call from Reimu, who reasons that if the "show" Mima mentioned is going to happen as a result of Marisa doing what comes "naturally," it may mean that Marisa's free will has been subverted. Marisa finishes the spell and calls Alice to bring her up to speed.

Yukari leaves Mima via gap, and recieves a telepathic message from Ran, who has found whatever it was Yukari had asked her to search for. She then puts up the same kind of shield she put on Ran and Chen, rendering the "spirits" incapable of sending her messages.

At the Shrine, Cirno pesters Reimu, who declines a fight with her. Marisa discovers that the mysterious pumpkin has actually been a fooling-around Nitori, attempting to prank Marisa with her new Optical Camoflage. Marisa more or less chases her out, but then apologizes.

Alice has meanwhile created a mind-shield. It doesn't quite work.

Yukari interrupts Marisa's apology to ask Nitori about her breathing, which completely befuddles her. She examines her breathing, but doesn't find anything obviously unusual. She then gets blasted in her ears by a loud noise, and then ponders other explanations of the breath/air thing. At the same time, Marisa heads off to the Shrine.

There, and before Marisa arrives, Reimu seems to have come under the attentions of the "spirits." She promptly fends them off, and then unexpectedly attacks Cirno. Marisa, Nitori, and Alice (the remaining ones not currently shielded) immediately sense something amiss. Marisa tries to contact Reimu, who is surprisingly uncommunicative.

Alice catches the spirits trying to get her to test her ability to detect them. Nitori narrows the "breath" comment down to magical entities (though this isn't very narrow), and then Marisa calls her up to ask for backup in case of a confrontation with Reimu.

Nitori heads for the Shrine, taking various readings, and appears to make some sort of discovery just before nearly colliding with Reimu, who is pulsing with power, and says that she knows Nitori has figured it out before preparing to make the same assault she made on Cirno. Nitori dodges the initial attack, and tries to tell Reimu about her alliance with Marisa; Reimu brushes it off, saying she'll deal with her and Alice after Nitori.

Marisa senses danger and heads towards Nitori's location. Alice also senses danger, and briefly talks with Marisa. They conclude that if Reimu's gone crazy, they'll need Alice's Grimoire. Marisa waffles on whether to help Nitori or protect Alice, but Nitori renders the subject moot by transmitting Marisa the data she collected, and then lets Reimu attack her as a distraction. A massive explosion ensues, surprising Marisa, who then prepares to head home. She flies under the trees and reads the message Nitori sent her; its contents are hidden from the viewer by Yukari.

Alice, meanwhile, calls her mother Shinki, the dark goddess who created the demon-realm of Makai. After hearing her story, she promptly arrives in front of Alice's house, and puts up a shield around it. Marisa arrives soon after, followed quickly by Reimu via a gap.

They face off. Reimu claims that Marisa is being possessed by mindless spirits, sending them commands that reflect their own desires and thoughts. She ultimately claims that the best way to deal with it is if Marisa is unconscious, so Marisa brings in Shinki. Reimu goads Shinki into shielding her, and sets off a vast burst of energy which engulfs the forest, preventing everyone from recieving commands. Yukari gives one last glimpse, quoting Hamlet's last words, much to Mima's quickly-cut-off annoyance, and then closes the spirits' point of view once more.

End Of Act 1

The remaining mushroom is still sitting where Marisa left it. (At this point, the ice shards left over from Cirno's shenanigans are starting to melt.) However, it soon transforms into a mushroom-youkai who then names herself Masha Kinoko. After trying out the basics, she flies up and discovers a much larger world than she was expecting. She also discovers that she can summon exploding mini-mushrooms (actually a kind of danmaku). She then sets to work creating Spell Cards. She then recieves a KAWADEC call from a mysterious individual calling herself "Boon," who reveals that she is aware that Masha is "extraordinary" and gives her instructions on what to do after she's done with her Spell Cards.

Masha cannot figure out who Boon is, but decides to follow her directions. Boon calls again, however, and warns her that Mima is approaching, then closes the connection before Masha can question her further.

Elsewhere, Boon (whose identity is kept hidden) confers with Yukari, and asks her a few questions of clarification, before Yukari directs her to send Masha the aforementioned warning.

Masha sees a group of fairies frolicking, and calls Boon in a panic; Boon instructs her to sneak past, and tells her that Mima is searching the grove, giving them more time. She uses a danmaku-mushroom as a distaction, and easily slips by; she then comes across a strange device, which Boon tells her is a Danmaku Measuring Device. After checking her mostly-empty inventory (the only extraneous item is a blank crumpled piece of paper), Masha leaves a proximity mushroom for Mima and then calls Boon to see if she can try the device when Mima isn't chasing her. Boon instead offers to run interference in person. Masha tests it with mushroom-lasers, and then absconds as it attracts Mima's attention.

The proximity-mushroom is a success, but Mima quickly catches up. Boon intervenes, wearing a Cyborg Ninja mask from Metal Gear Solid, and directs Masha to head to the Misty Lake, before revealing herself to be Aya Shameimaru, the crow-tengu reporter. Aya holds Mima off, while Masha heads to the Lake, where she recieves a KAWADEC call on the "Boon" frequency from Yukari, who informs her that she appears to be a stage 3 boss, and to "wait for her."

At that moment, Aya is hit by Mima, but quickly recovers and fights on. Masha, unaware of this, figures out the ability to clone herself, but then realizes that Yukari never specified which "her" she was talking about and flips out. She soon calms down, though, as a somewhat distinctive-looking fairy approaches, bemused by her behavior. The fairy introduces herself as Daiyousei (meaning simply "great fairy"); discovering that Masha is a "newborn" who met Yukari, Mima, and Aya first thing, she is understanding of Masha's skittishness.

Masha offers to help Daiyousei find Cirno, but Daiyousei declines, and also mentions that she (Daiyousei) has a "birth defect" in that she is actually intelligent. She then spends some time telling Masha about some of the locations in Gensōkyō.

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