Chapter 0: Another Day in Neverland (6)

Not a moment passed after Emiya hung up the phone and the surface underneath her started to collapse. She had been following the trail of destruction the dragooun left behind, trying to locate it. It was constantly on the move. The others weren't returning her calls, so she had to take matters into her own hand. Lo and behold the dragooun left behind more than mere collapsed buildings. The entire street, the ground itself, was unstable and collapsing with every passing second. Its marks echoed throughout every corner of the area. Emiya figured it was a special type of dragon, but she never thought it would be that destructive.

— Note Increase!

In a matter of seconds, Emiya did not just pull her pen and wrote a couple of sentences, she wrote a paragraph amounting to an entire page. A "Note Increase" was an ability available to almost any author if they were able to master it well, allowing the writer to increase the speed of their writing to unimaginable lengths — it was especially useful in situations like these. Concluding the script, she held the entire paragraph with her pen and levitated it easily in the air — leaving it like that wouldn't cause any effect, her power was different from others after all. She took the effect upon herself and swiftly plastered the paragraph onto her calf. True to her power, the words were formed all over both her legs like tattoos.

As the last shred of surface beneath her almost caved in, Emiya, with great effort, stomped her feet to the ground, giving an additional push and transferring all the power to her calves as intended.

[Sub-Technique: Rush Boost]

With that, Emiya was sent flying, jumping away at an unbelievable height and speed.

That was the power of Emiya, the power of "First-Person." Unlike the other elements, where their purposes were to bring about or alter creations in some shape or form, the ability of a "First-Person" offered no freedom of creations at all. But instead, it provided the sole focus of increasing the writer's own physical prowess, pushing it beyond the limits. While such an ability like this was perfect for meatheads and brutes, not many of such kind were even able to use a shred of it. It was a hard ability to master, perhaps the hardest out of all elements, as it required authors to be very detailed with their writing.

So for someone like Emiya to be able to utilize it properly meant that, underneath that surface of aggression, there was great potential for her — as expected from someone from the Langley family.

In the few seconds she spent in the air, she could see the ground, upon which she stood, crumbling completely. Thankfully, her landing wouldn't pose a problem as there was still ground ahead. The added increase of power to her calves would guarantee no injury as well.

However, that was when Emiya realized the fault in her action. At the moment, she was using an immense amount of spectral energy stored in her calves that increased both her speed and the power of her legs. Landing at the speed she was at and with the weight she had would result in her wrecking the ground, albeit not entirely — that would be the case if the ground beneath barely held itself together. Just simply touching it with her current strength would cause it to crumble.

— Ugh… Great work, Emiya, you've really done it now. I have to keep a middle ground. Must find a stable surface quickly before I run out of spectral energy.

Being the student that she was, Emiya was still bound by her limited amount of spectral energy, especially when it came to exerting tremendous effort like the high jumps she was performing.

As she began to lose altitude once more, she used all her weight to put strength into her next jump, despite there being a second left to the ground collapsing as she touched it. She was constantly leaping from one surface to the other, leaving ruin in her path. It wasn't her fault, yet she felt an ounce of guilt deep down as if she added salt to the wound, but there was no time to dwindle on what had been done.

Much to her surprise, Emiya found no surface below her for the next leap, it was already in ruin.

— Crap!

It was all left to her survival instincts. She quickly drew the pen forward and began writing the words she chanted.

"Khji omn chiethsafeo… Wowmn SaRa wofeketji Thmnaf!"

They were more so symbols rather than words when written, even though chants normally required English words. This chant mimicked that of the Art of Gen-Kotaba, but these symbols weren't Japanese nor any language known to man.

What it was, only the Ancients would know.

Strange language or not, that chant managed to save her in the last second. Rather than falling deep down, the chant granted her the ability to be pulled away. Due to Emiya having no control over it, she was pulled away as if someone tied her by a rope to a random place.

The next thing she knew, she was inside a building — a safe surface, at last. She landed on one of the upper floors, which almost went entirely to ruin. There were no windows or walls to the side overlooking the street. The ground held itself pretty well despite there being gaps here and there, if one was not careful enough, they could fall victim to one, literally. From the looks of it, this was an office building, if not from the way the floor was constructed or the flickering LED lights in the ceiling, then it was definitely due to the number of broken desks and chairs scattered everywhere.

"You!!" A voice shouted from one of the corners. There was a woman hiding behind one of the fallen desks, shivering in her place even as she talked to Emiya, afraid of the destruction caused by the dragooun.

Emiya was surprised there was someone still left behind within the barrier. She made sure that everyone had evacuated. That woman was going to pose a problem, especially now that she had to be in her care.

"You bloody students think you're heroes?? If you stopped showing off, then this wouldn't have happened." Atop the trauma from what happened, the woman was at her brink, lashing out all her problems at Emiya.

"Wha?" Emiya was confused.

The woman stood up and went hysterical, running across the floor to all corners, "Oh no… the office… my company… everyone's gone, everything's gone. Even the contracts." She then gave Emiya a menacing glare, "I saw everything. All you're good at is moving your hands in the air and making snarky comments. You kids think provoking a dragon is a joke? Do you enjoy destroying homes and jobs? How am I supposed to build a comfortable life if a fifteen-year-old can destroy it in seconds without thinking?!"

Seeing something like this almost shocked Emiya. Someone like her never thought of avoiding collateral damage, be it caused by the target or a student like her, for she never experienced it. The damage had cost businesses and people their workplace. It made her wonder about the houses that were swept away in the destruction.

— No wonder a lot of people hate students like us. Could this even be considered collateral damage? The Academy uses our fees to pay for any damage caused by any of our missions, that much I know, but is it still enough to cover everything? Damn it, I have to be wary of what I do now. I just have to get this woman out of here first.

Fed up with everything, the woman decided to push her bout of hysteria to the extreme, grabbing hold of one of the broken chairs and throwing it at Emiya. It definitely caught Emiya by surprise. Her legs were out of energy, so instead of facing it head-on and kicking it away, she simply jumped out of the way, dodging it last-minute, letting the chair fall outside the building.

— What the hell is this woman??!! A freaking barbarian?!

It was unbelievable how a fragile woman like that managed to throw a heavy desk chair like that one at that speed. But it wasn't completely out of the question, people tend to do impossible things when pressed to pass their limit.

When Emiya finally came to a quiet and (almost) stable place like this, she thought of getting herself together and organizing a current plan on her own — despite the fact she was a part of a team. However, with the rate of anger the woman was going at, Emiya's earlier plan seemed unlikely. She had always been known for her anger issues, and she was aware of it, but what was in front of her was downright delirious.

— How does Juno handle people like this?

If faced by this woman, Juno would have probably found a solution to helping her or bringing her to her senses, that was what Emiya believed — she knew how her best friend operated better than anyone. And even though she could easily knock the woman out and be done with it, she didn't feel it was the right method.

"Um…," she sighed deeply, "Ma'am? Can you calm down a bit? You're being hysteric, and that's not good—"

"Wait what? Are you saying that I lost it? That I've gone— what? Poof? Do… Do you see my teeth falling? My eyes about to pop out?" Her expressions and manner of speaking were of the exact things she denied.

It was at that moment, that Emiya felt a shock down to her knees. She felt the presence of a giant object filled with high spectral energy approaching at an unimaginable speed. The only course of action was to evade it quickly, and take the woman with her — if she would leave her, she would probably die in the process.

— Vein Alter

There was no use to her legs at the moment, it was time to change to other limbs. And so, the words glued to her legs vanished along with the wind. Every part of her body needed different details and shifts, she couldn't just copy or move the chant on her legs to her arms. Not only did these two belong to different combat styles, but the words of the chants themselves won't apply due to being designed to that specific limb.

At break-neck speed, she wrote another bunch of paragraphs, before transferring them manually to her arms. She rolled up her sleeves, to avoid shredding them by accident, the markings were glowing bright once again.

[Literary Technique: Steel Set]

That was the new style she had switched to, offering aid to protection and relying on her arms for close-combat rather than the "Rush" one. She placed both her fists to the ground, like a track runner about to begin their race.

[Sub-Technique Activated: Falcon Drop]

That push was enough to wreck the ground below and push Emiya right at the woman. As soon as Emiya had the woman in her grasp, she backed away a few steps, only to be greeted by the aforementioned object. A humongous shard of ice flew right into the office, striking like a sword. It didn't take a second for the blast of the impact to knock out the woman. Emiya, on the other hand, was sent away to the other side of the room, but she used her hardened ability on her arms to shield herself. At that rate, it was only a matter of time before she could get knocked out upon impact to the wall. Her only method of solution was keeping the speed and pace she was at as it was. Before she could touch the wall, in mid-air, she struck it with all her might, sending her to yet another corner.

Maneuvering throughout a tight room with only one hand, and the other grabbing hold of the woman, wasn't as easy as it looked. With the increase in strength to her arms, she barely felt the weight of the woman holding her back. The problem, however, lied in adjusting her speed to make sense of where she was going and how to control her flow.

— If I could just make it to the center…

From afar, it seemed as if a pinball went haywire within that room.

By sheer luck or skill, Emiya managed to make it to the center wall that faced the torn-down wall where all the windows used to be. As opposed to all the other leaps, she put extra effort into this one to blast herself away from this building. Her heart was at a maximum pump, not from all the energy she exerted, but rather out of fear of the woman slipping away from her. Nevertheless, she moved ahead with her plan — as if she had much of a choice from the beginning.

As she flew away out of the building, she noticed behind her that it was slowly collapsing, making her breathe a sigh of relief that she got out when she did.

But then came the next part of her plan, she was still in the air, she had to do something quickly. The chant on her arm was weakening — add the fact that her arms were naturally weaker than her legs — so landing on them would surely break them, and the ground beneath was still shaken and bound to break like the rest with an impact like hers. Furthermore, her incantation from earlier only worked once, if she used it another time, she would pass out in the hospital for days.

— I didn't plan this far ahead. Crap! What do I do? What do I do? What do I do?

Emiya closed her eyes and expected the worst. But just as she was almost close to the ground, she suddenly found herself being pulled away. Beneath her were dozens upon dozens of sparkling particles carrying her away as if she was in one of those tales where the fairies aid the princess.

This was definitely the work of a writer. Strange as it was, she had an idea of who it might be.

Surprisingly, the ride wasn't that bad. Emiya felt herself flowing smoothly along with the particles like it was a long slide leading somewhere. From the height she was at, she could see the dragooun from far away. It was quite terrifying, as this was the first time she had actually seen it. Narrowing her eyes, she spotted three figures flying right behind the dragooun, most likely chasing it. It wasn't hard to determine that they were the rest of the team. But before she could confirm it, she suddenly found herself sliding back down to ground level.

Finally landing on a safe street, Emiya placed the woman on the ground upon jumping off the particles, and dropped herself to the ground, exhausted from all the work she had done.

"I'm… not… doing that again!" She barely spoke as she tried to find room to breathe properly.

Much to her expectations, she laid eyes on the two figures standing before her like the saving grace. Not too long ago, she was on the phone with them.

It was Lloyd and Zoe.