Chapter 0: Another Day in Neverland (5)

On the other side of the barrier, the people were formed in crowds just outside Clockwork town, wondering why in God's name was there an evacuation. They all had some knowledge that a Wonderland beast had somehow made its way within, but on what scale, they had no idea. Some believed it was a farce, or that this was simply a training program, mainly because the students of Luxsforth Academy were the ones handling the situation instead of actual competent authorities. Imagine trusting your home and life in the care of young students, the thought would make one shiver. Most civilians there started to oppose the authorities and demand they be back inside their houses. That was mostly true with the people from the marketplace after they were instructed, rather aggressively, to evacuate by Emiya, who was to them the unseemly odd nuisance at the bakery shop.

There were others who believed the beast on a rampage was a very dangerous one, especially the old woman sitting with her family near the sidewalk away from the crowds. Like any senile elder, she believed the end was upon them. The mystery of the Great Ones hiding beneath the surface. The Great Ones, as their name implied, were said to be great creatures that lived long before humans, that they controlled nature itself, and that they brought about Neverland and Wonderland.

"Settle down with those fantasies, Ivy!" Her husband, who was no better than her, shouted, "Those night riders are the true terror we should be afraid of."

"The Nyarlamancers?!" The woman spoke back in utter disbelief, "Gustav, you better shush your father before someone dumps him into the ocean!"

"I will not be shushed, woman! Y'know damn well that is true, or you're not the woman I married thirty years ago."

"Thirty years?! God, when you remember how long we've been married, you can come talk to me about those mythical riders."

"Ey, quiet!" The man sitting beside the old man said, "I wanna hear the story. Why don't you tell us about 'em? The night riders."

"My cousin says he seen 'em," the old man recounted, "Crawling from the east with the chaos behind 'em. Any village they touch become dust and bones. They attacked his village, and it was only God's miracle that he and a few others survived. Those riders' leader ain't that merciful."

"But don't they roam Wonderland? What brings them to the real?" A man, interested in the story, asked.

"Oh, bullocks, don't tell me you believe this hearsay, Mycroft…' There was another man accompanying him, a rather important fellow from the way he dressed.

"I'm rather fond of folktales, if I'm being honest," the other man replied, "And it's the best way to kill time, don't you think?"

"I'd agree with you if it wasn't about to kill my own career first."

The man was to become a government official quite soon. He was supposed to be done here that morning and on the first train to Scotland to conduct his first assignment as an official. That was if the town hadn't been evacuated so quickly and without warning. Unlike normal writers, who used their own special portal to transport from each realm, average people like him were to commute by Neverland's train normally, which had its own technology to transport one from here to reality.

"I mean, look at the commoners. They are going completely mental." He commented, "That over there," he pointed at the overweight man arguing with authorities at the front of the crowd, "That's Stanley Hover! A big merchant with an even bigger name to this town. I've known him almost my entire life." He grabbed a pack of cigarettes from his coat pocket and pulled one before lighting it up, "He may have had his wits back when I was an ankle-biter, but now, he's nothing but a senile geezer with a lust for greed. If I was like him, I'd beat every single of those damn coppers… but what can I say, I work with those damn inglorious bastards now."

"You seem to know him quite well," his friend snatched the pack of cigarettes and took one for himself.

"Like I told you, I've known him for a long time. I know every nook and cranny to this damned dead town, down its people. Oh, watch this…"

Among the crowd, sticking out like a sore thumb, was a young girl dressed in the academy's basic green garment — there was no mistaking the bright crest on the back of her uniform. From the man's deduction, she looked about fifteen, sixteen years old, making her either a pre-grade or a first-year student at the academy. Her standing on the sidelines meant that she had nothing to do with what was going on, another team was handling the incident. The man understood the academy's systems well enough to know that. He believed that her standing by her lonesome was trouble waiting to be ignited.

"Ol' Stanley's gonna get bored of the authorities and latch himself onto the poor girl, I'm telling you. He hates the academy the most, their practices have cost him fortunes as you know."

"But they pay handsomely, I hear."

"Still not enough to keep him quiet."

And so what the man said became a reality. The geezer spotted the young girl easily and started walking up to her.

"You… You! Over there!!" He shouted, "I know the likes of you. The scum of the academy. Why are you standing over there doing nothing? I don't pay my taxes for those knuckleheads to stand by idly and leave spoiled children like you to their jobs."

"I-I…" The girl was completely startled. She had no words to defend herself with. If she would, she could very well mop the floor with him considering she was on a different level physically than an average human being, but that wasn't how writers did things, that certainly wasn't how she did things.

"I-I What?!!" He mocked the girl's stuttering, "You're going to cry to your mummy and daddy? Well, maybe you shouldn't have joined this damn academy… and you call yourself a writer?"

Both men chuckled at the scene they witnessed. Hover did not fail to entertain them by one bit, even if it was the cost of the poor girl's tears. It wasn't just them, however. None of the people in the crowd offered to help the girl. In fact, they were as angry as Hover but weren't as impudent. The geezer doing the job for them was enough to suffice. As for the authorities, they just followed their instructions like dogs — robots, even, dogs had emotions at least — no more, no less.

And then, he showed up.

"Excuse me… S-Sorry…"

A young man dressed in a rather casual variation of the academy's uniform. The patterns in the basic uniform were long gone and instead, were on the extra hood he had attached to his jacket. Instead of the plain dark school shoes, he donned green sneakers to match the color of his jacket. The only thing that could make one tell he was from the academy was the crest plastered on his jacket's back, just like every single uniform in that school.

He pushed through the crowd as fast as he could, like a fellow who was late to work.

"Well, look at that. He's about to receive the short end of the stick…," the man's friend, who was still smoking, laughed.

"Hmm…," the man wondered, "I don't know about that, friend."

"What do you mean? He is a student, is he not?"

"Yes he is, but… I've seen him before…" he threw his cigarette on the floor before putting it off with his leg, "You wouldn't want to know who accompanies him."

That sentence made his friend intrigued over the matter more.

The young man, oblivious as he was, almost passed the geezer and the girl if it weren't for the geezer's sharp eye in spotting youth like him.

"You there! Don't think I don't see you, eh…" the geezer snickered.

The young man looked at him with the most surprised look. He pointed at himself to make sure that he was the one the geezer was calling. That was when he noticed the girl, whom he recognized, and decided to approach them. It didn't take him a minute to read the situation, but he pretended to still be ignorant of what was going on.

"Oh sorry, gramps," He wore a friendly smile, "But I'm just la—"

"Who the hell are you calling "gramps," you insignificant child?" He grabbed the young man by the collar, while still holding the girl from her blazer by his other hand, "Do you have any idea who I am?"

"Huh?! Should I?" The young man asked with the most genuine tone.

The geezer was at the end of his rope, "This insolent child. I don't pay my taxes to your academy's fees just so you can—"

"Fees?" The young man pushed the man's hand with ease, which shocked the geezer. Stanley Hover was quite strong, even for his age. So for a boy to have no trouble getting rid of his grasp was preposterous. "Last I checked, my parents, paid my school fees…," he scratched the back of his head in thought, "And the academy's a private school, I don't think it requires money from the public, does it? Ugh… I shoulda paid attention to Economics class."

There was not an ounce of sarcasm in his tone. It seemed the young man was genuine about his words and questions. And it all left the geezer speechless, he couldn't believe a boy like him would have the audacity to counter everything he said.

"Oh, Hannah…," the young man looked at the girl, "They need you down the block for um… reading?"

"But I'm not—" The girl, who still hasn't caught on, was about to answer.

"Yeah yeah yeah, they need you right now for the perusal circle… They're about to start, you better hurry."

The young man grabbed the geezer's other hand away from the girl's jacket and then waved for her to move along.

Hesitant, the girl walked to the other side of the crowd, away from the barrier, and looked behind her occasionally to check if something was wrong.

The young man then reached his hand with the man's hand and shook it. "So sorry for the ruckus, gramps. But I have to leave now, duty calls after all. It was nice meeting you though."

Just like that, the young man pushed through the crowds once more, leaving the geezer stunned in his place. Never, in all his life, did Stanley Hover ever get humiliated the way he had that day. Yet, he couldn't do anything about it. The two men who watched the whole scene unfold with intrigue were on the verge of applauding the young man for his swift solution and quick wits.

The young man finally escaped the crowd and faced the barrier. Filled with determination, he took a step forward to proceed but was immediately held back by one of the men from the authorities.

"I'm sorry, kid," the man said, "You can't pass, the barrier's up!"

"Wait!" The young man pulled his identification card, "I should be inside right now."

But the men didn't bother. They were all covered in dark suits and dark sunglasses, the young man couldn't tell where they were looking.

— What's the deal with these "Men in Black" dudes?

He had heard of how strict the authorities were but he never imagined they would be this bad. If they weren't going to let him, then he needed to take matters into his own hand. Breaking through the barrier was something easy for him. After all, he possessed the power to build scenarios of his own, anything to fit his mindset.

With a swift motion, he grabbed his ballpoint red pen, clicked on it, and started writing quickly on thin air. There was this one trick he watched in a superhero movie that enabled the sorcerer to create world-bending portals. He always wondered if he could try it in real life. Of course, with enough imagination, anything was possible with his power.

True to his imagination, a sparkling portal formed right through the barrier.

— Yes, let's go!!

"Hey wait—" One of the men tried stopping him.

But the young man quickly jumped through and wrote a few sentences on his way to close the portal. With that, he was inside and the authorities had no way of catching him unless they tore down the entire barrier.

"Catch ya later, Totally-Not-Agent-K-Looking-Man!"

Lloyd Ashford finally made it.

[STUDENT FILE #25125]

Full Name: Lloyd Ashford

Age: 17 years old

Birthdate: March 11

Gender: Male

Height: 174cm

Literary Element: World-Builder

Rank: 2nd Grade Student (Luxsworth Academy)

Note: Watches movies… a lot

[━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━]

The two men, who were still having a smoke, were both impressed by Lloyd's actions. The one who was to become a government official finished his second smoke and placed the pack in his pocket, deciding to stop for now.

"He's got guts, that kid."

"Well, yeah, he's no less of a troublemaker (than Zen.)"

"You said something?" His friend couldn't quite hear him from how noisy the crowd had become after witnessing what Lloyd had done.

"I was thinking of taking the day off today."

"What? It's your first day—"

"With how things are right now, I doubt it'll let up soon. Just present our case tomorrow, and the media will be our excuse. We can't do anything about it."

The man walked out of the street and to the intersection ahead, followed by his friend. As much as he wanted to watch the show that was about to unfold, he valued his life above all else.

Besides, it wouldn't be the first or last show for the Disaster Artist.

※※※

A couple of blocks away from the barrier, Lloyd stood at an intersection close to where the dragooun blasted its fire earlier. He observed the scenery before him, like an artist staring at their white canvas, thinking of what their next piece should be. But no artist could do anything without a base, and so, he grabbed his pen and began with one of the most important abilities of his.

[Recto-Verso Expansion]

To the eyes, it seemed he wasn't writing, but rather flowing with whatever direction his pen went toward. Lloyd was simply starting, establishing a base. Being late as he was, he never received the reading Zoe had done over the town, so he lacked a page to write on.

This ability he used was a staple ability among writers and authors. It granted them the ability to utilize their spectral energy to create and expand their folio (page) territory, giving them control over the arena they chose — similar to individual spectral barriers. Every writer had a page of their own surrounding them. Without it, their pen and abilities were as useless as a magic wand turning into a wooden stick. Normally, writers would have control over fifty percent of their surroundings and, if against another writer, would aim to expand it to invade another's folio, breaking their spectral barrier.

As for Lloyd, he was doing none of these things. He simply wanted a page of his own to copy Zoe's page. But how would he do that? Some might wonder.

— Annnd that should be ten minutes!

Finishing that thought, he immediately recognized the little girl sprinting her way toward him. If she was anyone, she would have been mistaken for an elementary school student, but no, she was none other than Zoe Jaeger. With a small notebook under her arm, she ran as fast as she could to deliver it to Lloyd.

Earlier, he had given her a call due to the fact that he was late. Since transmitting a reader's page to others exerted a lot of spectral energy — especially to inexperienced readers like herself — it was impossible for her to transmit another one to Lloyd. And so, the only solution left was the old-fashioned method.

"God…," Zoe was panting heavily as she slowed down before stopping in front of Lloyd. She took a moment to catch her breath and stretched her back due to the pain she felt. Her skills were that of a non-combatant so running almost two miles wasn't entirely in her expertise. "Couldn't I have just sent you this on the phone?"

"Wouldn't have worked," Lloyd rubbed his forehead with a disheartened look, "The old book doesn't abide by our 21st-century rules, so what else can we do? Come on, hand it over. We gotta hurry!"

When writing as a form of magic started centuries ago, it was as simple as writing a word on paper and having them manifest immediately, but it was also limited to tools at the time. Come more authors, and it evolved much more to the state it had become in the current century. Of course, having it adapt to the current technology would be nothing but a pipe dream.

Discontent, Zoe reluctantly opened her notebook and tore a paper from it. The paper was filled with so many words you could not even see a single spot from the white layout it had in the first place, it was a jumbled mess of ink. But that was completely normal, in a situation like that. For a piece of writing to work on actual paper, one would need to write exactly as they did on thin air. And so Zoe wrote all there was about Clockwork town (again), which, suffice to say, did not exactly fit in one paper on both sides. Regardless, she managed to succeed. If Lloyd had her read and write the entire city again, she would not have done it.

As soon as Lloyd saw the paper, his eyes lit with excitement — even though a paper like that would scare anyone away mistaking it for a curse chant. As Zoe tried to hand it to him, he snatched it straight away like a madman who just found his long-lost treasure.

With a wry smile on his face, he turned to the page he wrote on thin air and slammed the paper on its non-existent surface. Just like that, the paper slowly disintegrated, merging in with Lloyd's page, the jumbled mess of words eventually formed elegantly on thin air along with the previous sentences. As soon as the paper was fully incorporated into the page, its sentences disappeared, making space for Lloyd to write afterward. He had no need for its words anymore as the spectral energy within him and his page allowed him to memorize and understand its contents immediately.

— A long intersection ahead… A cross… The Marketplace…

Luckily, the draft he received was a new one so he had a rough idea of where the dragooun might be.

"So… what are you going to do?" Zoe asked.

"Hoho… Zoe Zoe Zoe… Zoe…"

She tilted her head slightly in confusion, weirded out by how he called her name multiple times with a sinister tune in his voice.

"I have a plan!" He raised his index finger in the air with the confidence of a scientist receiving a patent for their invention.

"Uh-huh…?" She still had the bewildered look on her face.

He struck his grip on his other palm, carrying a dumb plain, but happy, expression on his face. "We create parts of a cage trap throughout the area! And once the dragooun is in the right spot, we gather those parts together, and trap it! The perfect plan, righhhht?"

"No!" Zoe was immediately let down by Lloyd's far from perfect plan, "Juno told me it's a fire-breathing dragon, it would melt the cage within half a second."

And the fact that it was far too much for the team, with one world-builder being Lloyd, at that point to create an absolute cage covering an entire town. Anything less could result in the spectral barrier breaking down and the endangerment of the civilians outside.

"Ehh…," Lloyd lowered his head for a moment, before swiftly raising it back up, "Then how about—"

"And it breathes ice as well."

Knowing Lloyd's mindset, Zoe stopped him before suggesting yet another doomed plan. It was common knowledge that anything he would come up with would result in disaster, yet sometimes, when the wind is blowing in the right direction, he would become their only trump card. This was not one of those times.

Striking his hands like before once again, he suggested another plan, "We create a poison cloud!"

Not surprised anymore, Zoe shut him down. "Who can create the cloud? I know for sure you can't. And did you think about us? About the rest of the people? What if it affects the dragooun, but affects us as well? What if it kills everyone?"

— Geez, when did she become so strategic?

[— You just can't come up with something good.]

— Why are you in my thoughts?!!

[— I'm not.]

Both Lloyd and Zoe stared at each other with blank expressions for a good minute. The others were trying their best against the rampaging beast, and all Lloyd could do was stand idly, not being able to think of a proper method to stop it. Zoe was none the wiser. She refuted Lloyd's plans because of pure logic, but to come up with a miracle to stop that dragooun, that would need more effort than she could make.

Before Lloyd could spout something else, Zoe's phone rang aloud. She pulled it out to find that it was a group call from Emiya, but no one had answered. It seemed they were indeed busy dealing with the dragooun. Zoe answered and put it on speaker.

"About time someone answered!" Emiya's distinguishable voice came through, "Where the hell are you?"

Her voice was enough to send a chill down anyone's spine. Even with her not being there, Zoe still felt intimidated by her. As for Lloyd, he couldn't bother, he knew very well what type of character Emiya was and how to handle her.

Zoe tried to answer. "I-I'm with Lloyd at—"

"Lloyd?!! He's here? That lazy bum?!!!"

"I'm not that lazy." He blatantly interfered.

Lloyd was well acquainted with Emiya, he had been for years. Aside from Emiya's often "aggressive" behavior, both of them were quite alike in a lot of things, most commonly, their love for video games. While Lloyd was a movie fanatic, he still loved video games as much as anyone. The only downside from their mutual love of that medium was Emiya potentially breaking the game console whenever she lost either against Lloyd or by herself. Her aggression was not a joke.

"What took you so long, dumbass?!! We've been waiting on you all morning. Stop watching those movies of yours so late at night, and maybe you won't be late like today! You're lucky we're on a field mission. If it had been a normal day, you would have kissed your attendance score goodbye."

"But you weren't any better, Emiya." Zoe was right.

Emiya might have not been sleeping, but she was slacking off as well. Her feud in the bread store was something to behold after all.

"Shut up! You were late eating that new marry-whatever of yours so don't scold me just because I have a fine taste in bread. That's straight-up oppression."

"Do you even know what that word means?" Lloyd said in a mocking tone.

"I swear to God, don't make me gut-punch you again. I'll use my element."

"I'd like to see you try." He was challenging her.

That was a daily routine of theirs. Always challenging each other on the simplest of things, most likely on games. They would decide who would do what based on who would win whatever challenge they were presented with.

"You're going down once I see you, birdbrain. I'll—" For a second, she stopped. The sound of bricks and stones falling could be heard. It was clear she was in an area affected by the dragooun. "Oh dammit, I gotta go. Oh, shi—"

The call was hung up without notice. Zoe feared for Emiya's safety, giving Lloyd a look of worry.

"She'll be fiiiiine…," Lloyd, on the other hand, trusted in Emiya's power and quick wit greatly. She might have been considered a brute and reckless by others, but she still always came up on top.

Emiya was not the type to easily falter.