Chapter 0: Another Day in Neverland (8)

It didn't take a minute for the others to notice the obvious change in weather. Earlier, they were chasing the dragooun to no end with no hope or progress on the previously discussed "plan." Shogo did his best to keep the beast at bay, which was the only part of the plan that was actually working. But now, it all changed and something else was afoot.

Juno quickly landed with her owl on top of a building, it was no longer safe to fly around. Letting the dragooun flee, Nathan and Shogo joined Juno, since they couldn't move on with their plan now with the unexpected and bizarre interruption. Before they knew it, they were surrounded by the typhoon from everywhere.

Lightning came bursting down to the ground like wildfire, followed by the echoing boom of thunder. It was certainly abnormal for the weather to change abruptly like that.

Having a great sense for spectral energy, Shogo deduced that a reality shift had happened and that they were inside someone's folio.

"Did you two talk to our "reinforcements" recently?" He asked.

"Not since our initial plan meeting — if you could call it that." Juno answered, "Emiya should be done with the evacuation. I don't know about Zoe, but she should be outside the border if she was done with her reading… You think this is an attack?"

"No!" He smiled, and placed his hands in his pockets, breaking down the rigid barrier and indirectly telling the other two to take it easy. "Far from it, actually. But whomever's work is this…"

Down on the street, hordes of the undead began to rise up from the typhoon and marched forward. They paid no attention to others, heeding their leader's orders and focusing only on their enormous target. It was downright a scene from an apocalypse flick.

"Woah! Now that's a view worth dying for!" Shogo expressed his admiration.

There was only one person who could perform such a grandiose and extremely ludicrous scheme, and Nathan had him figured out immediately.

"Lloyd…," Nathan said, just mentioning his name like that made his blood boil. "That idiot! He must be out of his mind!! What does he think he is doing?!"

"Oh, settle your hooves there, bull!" Shogo patted Nathan's shoulder, "Relax… We're inside a folio. For once, he is being careful."

"I'm with you there." Juno agreed, despite her initial surprise.

"Let's take a closer look, shall we?" He climbed up the rooftop's fence, "A scene always requires an audience."

Using his ability, Shogo jumped off and ran along the walls of all buildings. Juno mounted her owl and flew off. There was no time to think about anything, it was time for action. However, Nathan stayed behind for a good minute, thinking of how he was going to give Lloyd some beating after all this was said and done. Someone had to keep that reckless halfwit in check, and that was Nathan's job.

Even though the undead were harmless, they kept their distance from the ground. The undead marched with mayhem, like insects crawling together and submerging one another. As Nathan leaped from pole to pole, he felt the whole world swirling up whenever he looked down, as if he was being pulled away. It wasn't acrophobia, he was the last person to ever have a fear of heights. But just the thought of getting overwhelmed by those things down beneath made his stomach twirl.

"You just had to be dramatic and summon zombies…" he mumbled to himself. "If he went through the effort of doing a Reality Shift, he might have easily taken out that thing without needing to be flashy. He just wants to feel like a hero."

"Cynicism will do you no good!" Shogo overheard him, "This kind of imagination is what makes us writers. It's our heart and soul. As long as nobody's hurt… What's wrong with a little thrill?"

— Easy for you to say.

Making it to the intersection first, Juno brought her owl to a standstill.

"There he is!" She cried out to the others. She could see Lloyd, and Emiya and Zoe, walking on the obscured surface of wind and particles, with him looking as proud as ever. "Annnd… he's not toning down his demon king roleplay by one bit — always wants to live the moment, huh."

"Front seat viewing? Don't mind if I do." Shogo left Nathan's side, making his way to Lloyd and the others.

"Would it kill him to be serious for once?" Nathan caught up to Juno.

She shrugged. "I don't care. They seem to be progressing much better than we are, so I don't really have any room to disagree."

She was right. If it was to fulfill their mission, all of them needed to set aside their differences and work together.

※※※

"You fear the dead." Lloyd spoke in a supercilious tone, "You mock the dead. You become one of the dead. But never… should you suffer the fate of becoming the dead puppet."

"What the hell are you muttering?" Emiya stepped up beside him.

"Just some lines I read once in a bestiary." He straightened his jacket. "Did you know there is more than one type of undead? (Man, it would have been so cool if I was able to manifest the stitchreaper)."

"Ah… so trying to encourage your imaginary underlings…" She snorted with laughter.

"They're not imaginary if you can manifest them into reality. They are still my loyal subjects for the time being. Let me live my moment, please."

As they walked along the surface, a tall figure approached them from the distance, and they soon realized it was Shogo, followed by Juno who came flying down on her owl. Nathan was still some distance behind.

Even though they were a team in the first place, it was usually a miracle to possibly get them all in one place at the same time. Perhaps it was due to Shogo's belief in the fair method of Laissez-Faire Leadership. He wasn't the type to boss people around, and certainly not people he considered his friends. However, the screw wasn't always "too loose." As much as he put faith and trust within his team, he still knew when to pull the strings. Let them run too far off and they will be lost, that was what he believed.

But at long last, the entire team had gathered in one place for the decisive conclusion.

"Yo!" Shogo still maintained his positive and calm composure, "Pretty sick scenario you wrote around here, bud! Might need some backup with a diegesis for all this."

"I know, right?" Lloyd was ecstatic with his opinion on the matter, like a kid who awaited approval from his older brother.

Shogo approached Lloyd.

"Which is why you gotta be careful with these things." He meant to scold him in a humorous manner, wrapping his arm around his head, almost lowering him to the ground, and scrubbing his hair as hard as he could. "One wrong move and we would have ended up with actual man-eating zombies… but then again, that might have been a bit thrilling. Oh, why didn't you make a mistake, Lloyd? Just imagine us fighting with bats and guns against these guys."

"Come again?" Emiya looked at Shogo with a concerned smile on her face.

That guy was supposed to be her leader, so hearing such bizarre things come out of his mouth was certainly something up for apprehension. It wasn't much of a surprise, however. Like Lloyd — and all of them — Shogo also had a screw loose in his mind and an obsession with movies — he probably indirectly passed down that obsession to Lloyd as well. Heck, he was a walking mess of too many mediums.

"Okay okay okay okay, I get it." Lloyd tried escaping Shogo's grasp, "I won't do it again without asking you, I promise."

"Enough with this already!" Juno jumped off her owl and joined them. "So what's your big plan? You surely must have one, seeing as you not only summoned these creatures here but also went through the effort of performing a reality shift."

Lloyd pushed himself away, and finally escaped Shogo's grasp. "Oh, yeah, I'm fine too actually, Juno. I'm totally okay without being greeted like a normal person."

"Get on with it!" She eyed him a vexed look, not much of a change from her usual blank face.

He sighed, "It's really not that hard to figure out, guys. I'm just going to have them climb over the dragooun until it's brought to the ground — like a swarm of ants."

"You really think that's gonna work?" Juno crossed her arms, with a now doubtful expression on her face.

"Let's say it decides to fly away, then what, O' Wise Demon King?" The usual irritated member, Nathan, had finally decided to join them. He walked directly in Lloyd's direction, completely set on punching him and giving him a mouthful.

"But it's not…"

Pissed at Lloyd, Nathan grabbed him by the collar.

"Really… it's not." Lloyd gestured for Nathan to calm down, "Hybrid or not, baby dragons don't fly."

"What dragons???" All of them said in unison, except for Shogo, who was still off to his own world.

Even Juno, the expert on all of the things concerning Wonderland creatures and beasts, was ignorant of that fact. It was still her first time documenting information on such a dragon. Official books knew so little about it, which was why all of them have been failing on determining a proper approach to capture it. And with its constant shift in size, there was no way of determining its age. Although reckless on her part, Juno assumed the dragooun knew its abilities from the start. It would have been easy to figure that was not the case when it chose to rampage and run through the town instead of flying off.

What was more bizarre… was the fact that, out of all people, Lloyd somehow knew.

"I just thought that was the case. Dragoouns are imperfect, they don't develop their attributes properly, right? And their age range for being babies spans over fifty years. It said that in the bestiary."

"Same one?" Emiya looked at him.

He nodded.

"Wait— What bestiary?" Juno was interested. If there was an actual book out there with information about mysterious beasts such as that one, then she needed to know about it.

"A question for another time. We have what we need." Shogo interrupted. "As for now, we gotta capture our giant friend over there before this thing drags out for way too long. I gotta be back at the Academy by four to meet with Principal Cain after all. So we're kind of running on tight schedules here, guys." He stood in front of them all, preparing to brief them on what to do. The time for fun and games was over, it was time to lead. "Lloyd! You keep doing what you're doing and make sure to swarm it as you claimed. Juno! Find a vantage point nearby to practice the necessary script to trap it. If you're done before we are, then be on standby. Zoe! Tag along with Juno and fill us in if you detect any abnormality with your readings. As for you two, Emiya and Nathan, you're both with me. We're going to cut short on time and make sure to trap the dragooun quickly… the sooner, the better."

As soon as he finished, the dragooun roared in pain. It seemed that the undead were, at last, able to get the upper hand on the beast.

That was all it took for a proper signal.

Shogo swung his hands forward. "Let's move out!"

Planning was finally set in motion and everyone started to move. Juno hollered for her owl, hopped on top of it, and then Zoe stepped up to accompany her to their designated vantage point. Nathan used the debris beneath once again to traverse through the street from up high, and Shogo followed behind him by leaping from rooftop to rooftop easily. Everything was going smoothly… but Emiya was left behind, along with Lloyd, who was already in his position in the first place.

There was an awkward tension coming from Emiya toward Lloyd. She had run out of energy from within her legs so her amplifier prints weren't going to do anything but break her limbs — people say to always push past one's limit, but that couldn't be applied with Emiya's case. That hindered her movement, and she couldn't make use of other limbs since she would probably need them for the fight. Her only option was to ask for Lloyd's aid like when he saved her the last time. But for Emiya Langley to do something such as that, her pride wouldn't allow that.

"Hey! You need some help??"

Just a glance at her was enough for Lloyd to read her like an open book. Reading people easily was one of his most treasured traits.

"Eh???" She turned around in embarrassment. Her approach was completely busted. She was angry, yet she couldn't burst out her anger at Lloyd for some reason, despite being ready to kick him off the surface a few minutes before then.

Without needing an answer, Lloyd did what he thought was right. He left his main scenario to play by itself for a second and wrote an extra "sub-scenario," or so he called it, to help Emiya get closer to the dragooun on her own. Seconds later, and the sparkling particles from earlier showered Emiya before lifting her off her feet.

"Hey!! What do you—" She tried shouting.

"Thank me later, Emi!" He shared a bright smile that was enough to keep her quiet for the time being.

And just like that, Emiya was off with the rest. Lloyd was left alone in his position to proceed further with his plan. From where he stood, he could see the undead closing in on the dragooun at the right location, in the middle of all the town, where the undead could swarm it from all directions. There was no escape.

Lloyd truly felt like a demon king leading his army in war. He began to understand why so many strived to be ones in the fairy tales he heard and read about as a child. But then he thought again, being something like that wasn't a good thing at all, as if he was a child learning the difference between right and wrong.

"Eh… whatever. It's still all imaginary." He smiled, deciding to move ahead with his plan nonetheless. "Let's take back what's lost!"