Chapter 17 - Liberty Comes At A Price

Liberty Comes At A Price
Marisa coughed and felt her stomach wrench, "Ugh," she groaned, placing one hand on her mouth and one on her abdomen. She slowly opened her eyes. Her vision was glowing green and incredibly blurred.

"Marisa!" called a voice in front of her. She felt hands on her shoulder. "Marisa? Are you okay?"

Marisa looked up at the speaker. She felt sick, her stomach twitching uncomfortably. Her vision began to focus but the odd green glow remained. "Cirno? I glad to see you're- Urgh." Marisa hurled again, her back arching in pain. She sitting against a wall.

Cirno turned to look at Rin, "What happened to her?" Marisa leaned to the side to see Rin sat in a chair past Cirno's head.

"She was at centre of several nuclear explosions," explained a saddened Rin, "It's a miracle she's alive."

"I'd say," added Solace, sat on the other side of the room, with a dazed look on her face, "Apart the glowing green left eye, Marisa looks unscratched. Seems to be a common theme that nuclear explosions give superpowers."

Marisa looked around at the people and the environment, extremely confused, "Rin? Ritsu? Sasaki? What happened while I was gone?"

"A lot," answered Ritsu, aware of the Meltdown Directive, sat next to Marisa, still in pain herself, "Short version: Yamaha took over USA, Gensokyo took over Africa, North High takes over Gensokyo, Haruhi dies, Reimu gets captured, Miku gets executed, Doom and Ganondorf take over and now we're attempting to go back in time. And everybody knows about it."

"... Haruhi died? How?" Ritsu and Rin looked at Cirno, having been unable to extract the information during the helicarrier infiltration. Cirno was scared of being put on the spot and took hold of Marisa round the neck for protection. "Cirno? Did something happen?"

Cirno gulped and whispered in Marisa's ear, "I... used the Death Note."

Despite trying to keep quiet, Ritsu's close proximity and Rin's robotic hearing enabled them to hear loud and clear. Ritsu's expression turned to one of fury, "You-" She grabbed Cirno's arm roughly, Cirno screaming in fear in response, tightening her grip of Marisa.

Marisa took hold of Ritsu's wrist, "Let. Go," she glared, "Now." Ritsu stared back at Marisa's green eye, which was pulsating strongly. She reluctantly let go with a huff. Rin just kept silent knowing Yamaha would have fallen anyway.

"In her defence," began Solace, "She had no idea about it. Language barrier and all." Solace was feeling sympathetic towards Cirno, understanding Alice's feelings towards the ice fairy. She had a powerful headache from the force of Superman's punches, the Super Driver directing too much power to her skull. Naluri was sat next to her, hugging her knees, head down and completely silent, most likely asleep, her helmet at her feet.

"So is time travel really the only option left?" asked Marisa. She was breathing heavily, holding back her urge to regurgitate.

"It's too late to find more allies," noted Sasaki, "If we give them time, they'll find the DeLorean and stop us from using it. We don't know the location of any other time travelling device not under high security."

"The what? Urgh..." inquired Marisa with discomfort, "The DeLorean? What's that?"

"It's a time machine in the form of a car," explained Solace, "We need to get to it, provide 1.21 gigawatts of electricity and drive up to 88 miles per hour."

"A car? For how many people?"

Sasaki and Solace looked at each other in realisation. "...Two," answered Solace, "Three at most. The DeLorean has no back seats."

Marisa sniggered in pity, noticing they hadn't thought of it before, "So who's going? Actually, first, what time are you thinking of going back to?"

"Back to stop Cirno from using the Death Note. Luckily, she was around the same area where the DeLorean is being stored."

"... You're not thinking about stopping The Bad Apple Incident?"

"We're in a world where The Unwritten Law no longer holds," commented Santiago, "Most likely, if we stop the Incident, a world without The Unwritten Law would occur sooner. As much as I hate you guys for starting the conflict, I'd say only paying money for our lives is much better." There was a lot of resent in Santiago's voice, something Marisa caught up on.

"You think we started it?" she sneered, "You think- Urg-," she covered her mouth, "You think we wanted to start the conflict? What do you know about the Incident?"

"Oh," began Santiago with a sarcastic voice, "Well, your honourable leader decided to take over America just because she was too weak to take an insult?"

Marisa laughed before choking strongly. Once she recovered she continued, "So you're saying you know how to take an insult, dumbass?"

There was a pause before Santiago spoke up, "Okay, Miss Kirisame, let's not start with name calling, yeah? That's just immature."

Marisa smiled, "Okay, assume you're standing far away and I shouted at you. What would you do? Shout back?"

"... I'd go up to you and say it calmly and politely. Without name calling."

"So, what would you call name calling?"

"Bullying," responded Santiago rather quickly, "But there's no need to get violent."

Marisa suddenly grabbed a pistol from Ritsu's left holster at her waist and pointed it at Santiago, pulling back the hammer. Rin instantly stood up, drawing her own pistol at Marisa. Ritsu took the pistol from her right side and put it up to the side of Marisa's head. Marisa completely ignored them and continued her conversation with Santiago, who had drawn a revolver towards her, "Know what this is?" Cirno was looking around with panic.

"... A gun."

"Assume there are many other people with guns around who pointed these at you. What would you do?"

"Put my hands up and start explaining."

Marisa tilted her head to one side with a serious expression, "Now. Assume you don't know what a gun is. What would you do?"

"... Continue walking."

"And once they started firing? Assuming you were powerful enough to fight back?"

"Fight back."

At this response, Marisa reset the hammer and placed the pistol back in Ritsu's holster. "And that is The Bad Apple Incident in a nutshell." Santiago, Rin and Ritsu slowly holstered their own weapons. "The people who tried to convince Reimu to move into a luxury apartment had an armed escort. Reimu approached the native who insulted her but the escort fired. In our universe, Gensokyo would be described as a backwards country. We don't have guns, grenades, missiles, fighter aircraft, combat helicopters, tanks, warships. We have divine energy and sharp blades and that's it. Reimu was scared of these new things. She feared for her life," Marisa began looking around at the others, "What would you have expected Reimu to do with the full might of the US army trying to take her down? Unlike the majority of newcomers, we don't have countries like the USA or Japan to judge this world as the Real one. We were lost, afraid and under fire. Of course we fought back."

"Are you blaming the natives for starting the conflict?"

"No," answered Marisa, shaking her head, "They had every right to fear all us newcomers. Our appearance was just as unexpected to them as it was to us. It's unfortunate that they have to resort to these heavy duty methods of pacification. Do you understand our situation now? Please don't blame Reimu for being human." There was silence. "Anyway, the DeLorean," carried on Marisa, "Who's going back?"

"Cirno has the be the third," suggested Solace, who had her eyes closed, "Three of the rest of us wouldn't be able to fit."

"Taking Cirno would also help with convincing her past self to not use the Death Note," added Santiago, "It would be good to have people who can stop either Doom's rise to power or the Meltdown Directive."

"Stopping the Meltdown Directive isn't enough," input Rin, "Yamaha was doomed as soon as it dropped its Barrier with Gensokyo."

"Then shouldn't we go back in time a little more to stop the formation of your 'alliance'?"

"I should point out," began Solace, "That the DeLorean from the films can't travel through space and time at once. If we use the DeLorean at the garage, we'll appear at the garage in the past which would be in Gensokyo."

"We made our alliance at the place the Thunder Child broke through the Hakurei Barrier," informed Marisa, "Sasaki's presence would allow for Reimu to remove her Barrier. Then when the alliance goes through Sasaki can prevent the Meltdown Directive, the Fission Strategy and the use of the Death Note and finally talk with Haruhi to try for a worldwide alliance."

"Essentially, that means the last person should be someone who can successfully escort both Sasaki and Cirno to that area. Which makes Marisa the best choice, since it's in Gensokyo territory."

"We've got warships, Dreadnoughts and aircraft carriers, approaching from the east," reported Rin with a hurried voice, changing the topic abruptly, "They're blocking our way round the American coast." Santiago went up to the window and could see the lit skyline of a city to the west but could not see anything to the east. "We're about to pass by New York but we won't be able to pass their barricade without a delay. It would be possible to launch over land straight to the garage but it's risky. The Thunder Child is not suited for flying or hovering and the landing will be very dangerous. However, since I don't think the Thunder Child has ever displayed this ability so it might mean we'll get there before they expect us to. I'm hoping the town is still uninhabited. Marisa, are towns near the border inhabited."

Marisa finally realised she was on the Thunder Child. "Yeah, since Yamaha placed their Sonic Amps too close to the Hakurei Barrier, we evacuated border-side areas in case the Hakurei Barrier went down. Otherwise the Sonic Barrier would dissolve all residents, as well as the cities and towns."

"Do we have a choice on the matter?" smiled Ritsu, weakly. No one voiced a disapproval.

"Fine," stated Rin, looking forward, "Everyone who can fly or secure themselves to the surfaces, take hold of someone who can't. And wake Naluri up. It's going to get bumpy."

"I'm awake," expressed Naluri, lifting her head showing a distracted face. There was a trail of dried blood from her forehead running down her face. Solace placed Naluri's helmet back on her head and wrapped an arm round her neck without a word, realising that Naluri was not in the mood to talk.

"Alright," nodded Rin with determination, "Hold tight." The Thunder Child suddenly dove underwater, the window's vision going black. The vessel sunk quicker and quicker to the ocean floor. Marisa gurgled, covering her mouth once more, brought on by the falling feeling. Slowly coming to a halt, the Thunder Child began to point up. "Here we go!" shouted Rin. The hyperdrive engine roared to life, the vents shining bright white and the ship shot up at high speed back towards the water's surface. The Thunder Child launched out the water into the night sky, rising several hundred metres over ground level. However, instead of falling back to ground, as the ship continued to point diagonally up, the overclocked hyperdrive allowed the vessel to fly forwards at a horizontal level. Heading directly towards the garage area, the ship began to pass New York. Then Rin realised something wrong about the Statue of Liberty. "Why's the Statue facing us?" Panicked realisation set on her face. "They managed to rebuild the power plants already?!"

Marisa opened her eyes, arm wrapped round Ritsu, "It's operational? Can we avoid it?"

"The slime ball it'll fire is too big to be portalled away. If it hits, it'll sap all power from the ship and we'll fall down to ground too early. If we slow down, we'll also fall too early and become sitting ducks. If anyone has a way of shooting it down in the next few seconds, the Thunder Child's exits are facing southwards and eastwards." It was clear a few seconds wasn't enough time for anyone to counter any projectile from the west.

Marisa looked at the hyperdrive. "Cirno, hold onto Ritsu for me."

Cirno unwilling let go of Marisa and took hold of Ritsu instead, "What are you doing?" Marisa did not answer and slid down the floor, landing on the hyperdrive's roaring engine. Outside, the Statue lowered its torch to point ahead of the Thunder Child. Marisa pulled open a back hatch of the engine, white light flooding the area, painful heat radiating Marisa's front. She took off her hat, taking her Hakkero out of it. Dropping her hat on the floor, she thrust the Hakkero with both hands into the hyperdrive, her arms burning with agony. The Statue's torch suddenly fired a large ball of green slime on a collision course with the Thunder Child.

"Final Spark!" shouted Marisa at the top of her voice, her green eye shining brightly with power. The hyperdrive's force increased dramatically, sending the Thunder Child higher up and faster into the air and avoiding the slime ball. New York flashed past, the naval barricade easily bypassed.

Rin turned back in her seat, "Marisa!" she called with fear, "Stop it! The hyperdrive can't take it!" But it was too late as the back half of the ship exploded in a massive fireball, throwing the front half ahead.

"Marisa!" cried Cirno, as Marisa's hat floated out the Thunder Child towards the waters below.

Gritting her teeth, Rin shouted out in encouragement "Just hold tight, people! The least we can do is succeed!" She turned forward back towards the window. Her mouth hung open at the view outside. "... Galactus?" Galactus, his body bigger than the Earth itself, his head dominating the sky, was staring down at the Thunder Child with an unamused look on his face. Suddenly, the ship began to dip with no hyperdrive to keep it in the air, the window view moving down to the ground below, revealing a well-lit town but with absolutely no sign of activity. "Impact in five! Four! Three! Two! One!" The front of the Thunder Child slammed into the ground and skidded along the road on its side, knocking over buildings and a highway. As the dust cleared, Cirno with Ritsu and Sasaki with Santiago floated back to ground, avoiding the final impact. Solace demagnetised the Super Driver with Naluri, the Super Driver successfully negating the dangerous sudden jerk of the final crash, though it did cause her headache to flare up again.

Rin was not so lucky. The force broke the chair's connection to the bridge floor, smashing Rin into the wall below. Her right leg had broken at the hip, attached only by several thick cables, and her right arm had snapped clean off. Her head had also been bent to the side, the motor broken and unable to get back into position. Loud and fast clicking could be heard, indicating heavy hard drive damage.

Sasaki knelt down by her in horror, "Rin, you-"

"Just go," interrupted Rin, her jaw unmoving but her eyes staring intently at Sasaki, "The garage is right outside but hurry. We're not alone."

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