"First, we need a plan."

Neo's heart skipped a beat as Roman started plotting. After over a year of essentially flying blind with only the prospect of revenge to guide her, a plan was just what she needed to bring some semblance of normalcy back into her life.

"We know approximately nothing about this place, so we'll need information," Roman started. "Did you find anyone or anything here before… well, you know."

With an unnecessary snap of her fingers, Neo summoned a copy of the strange beast she'd killed earlier, noticing the color slowly drain out of Roman's face. "…That's a start, I guess. Does it talk?" Roman asked after regaining his composure. In response, the eldritch abomination lunged towards him.

"NOOOOOoooooooooo…"

Roman jumped at least a foot high in surprise before his instincts kicked in and he smashed Melodic Cudgel on the beast's head on the way down, shattering it into a short-lived pile of glass shards. Try as she might, Neo failed to suppress a giggle.

After giving her a slightly accusatory glance, Roman sighed. "I think we can write that off as a dead end. Fortunately, I have a couple other ideas."

Roman started pacing in circles, a spring of nervous energy in his step. "I'm sure you already know this, but Little Red and her little friends are somewhere nearby. They're the annoyingly resourceful type, and they'll undoubtedly be looking for a way out of this place." Neo frowned; it was a pity they hadn't died already. "Fortunately, during the, uh, teleportation incident, I found them. Over there." Roman pointed over the tropical trees and towards a reddish treeline not too far off in the distance.

Neo glared at the forest. To think that Ruby was there the entire time…

If Roman noticed her expression, he didn't acknowledge it, instead continuing with his idea. "We'll find them faster if we split up. I'll skip ahead to the far end of that Forever Fall knockoff while you start with the close one. Be on the lookout for footprints. If you find any, tell me," he concluded, pulling his Scroll out of his pocket. Neo had no idea how his Scroll had made it through his apparent return from the throes of death, but she wasn't about to question the workings of the greatest gift of her life.

Roman turned around, looking towards his destination. "And remember, Neo, we wield the weapon of–" He vanished before the sentence was complete, to Neo's mild annoyance. Before she could set off for the forest, however, a word suddenly exploded in her left ear.

"–SURPRISE!"

Neo nearly fell over in shock. Sure enough, Roman was right behind her with the smuggest of smiles on his face. His smile was quickly met with a glare.

Roman chuckled. "Call it even?"

Neo responded by turning him into herself; it was almost like she was staring into a mirror. He attempted to object, but his new lack of voice put that to a grinding halt. He uselessly moved his mouth a couple more times before giving up, crossing his arms, and pouting. She begrudgingly undid the transformation a few seconds later, then started walking towards the forest (with a chuckle), leaving Roman to wordlessly blink away behind her.

The first thing Roman saw was a branch right up in his face, followed by several more branches as he tumbled to the forest floor. He managed to stick the landing, noting that he'd nearly turned his ankle on a nearby root. Normally, twisting his ankle would have ended in pain and days of healing, but now, twisting his ankle would have shattered it. Literally.

That aside, he'd chosen a bad spot to start from. Not only did teleporting to the sky above risk injury, the place he'd landed was overgrown with crimson foliage, with no paths to be seen. With a sigh, Roman started bushwacking.

As he swatted aside branches, bushes, and all their bothersome backwoods brethren, Roman felt his mind start to wander back to the sobering questions from earlier. What is existence, anyway? "I think, therefore I am?" Am I, really? What if Neo's doing all the thinking and I'm just another figment of her overactive imagination? At that, a distant part of his mind reminded him of all he'd experienced before meeting Neo. Yes, but that would imply that I was a real person, and real people don't come back from the dead… right?

Roman continued entertaining those grim thoughts until after a few unpleasant minutes of Melodic Cudgel-aided wildlife destruction, he plowed through one last branch before stepping onto a light dirt trail, similar to the one he'd seen Little Red and co. on during his earlier "visit."

The first thing he saw on the path were four faint sets of messy footprints. Jackpot! Roman wasn't a forest ranger by any stretch of the imagination, but he could at least tell which direction the group was headed towards. Time to cheat a bit. Focusing on the far end of the path in the right direction, Roman teleported to the spot, then looked farther down the trail and repeated the process.

Before he knew it, Roman arrived at a bridge spanning the otherwise uncrossable gap between the forest and what appeared to be a town, with a castle set behind it.

"Found you, Red," Roman said as he pulled out his Scroll to notify Neo. He quickly typed out a message, but hesitated before sending the message. Wait…

What if she knows already?

She didn't.

Neo had been growing increasingly angry. Her red-cloaked tormentor was surely nearby, but all she saw was an unbroken sheet of the forest's lighter reds and oranges, almost as if it was taunting her with pale copies of the wretched reaper.

After a handful of minutes that felt like an eternity and a half, the spell was mercifully broken by the vibration of her Scroll. While she initially smiled as she read Roman's message, a frown quickly formed as she realized just how far she'd have to walk.

As Neo continued her trek, though, distressing thoughts had started to enter her head. She brought Roman back from the dead by complete accident, so now what? She had no clue how it even happened, and knew equally little about possibly reproducing the effect. Still, she had to try to summon someone she knew had died.

So she reached her hand towards a patch of the ground—

No. She had to resist. And yet, she found herself trying again, this time managing to summon part of someone's legs. But alas, she reached for Hush and swung right at the still-forming illusion, destroying it before it could finish taking shape.

Neo heavily breathed, her hand on her pulsing, sickened heart. She tried everything to get her mind off those thoughts; a brighter future with Roman back in her life, a real chance against everyone who had wronged her, everything else that made her happy. Yet her heart still raced; nothing could eclipse the thought of bringing back other dead people. Worse, she and Roman were still stuck on this bizarre series of acres that defied every expectation of what a world was.

Neo dropped Hush; none of this felt real.

Roman smiled with a hint of exasperation as Neo at last strolled into view, crossing the bridge a few moments later. He'd been waiting for a good while, and the less time that their primary lead could spend slipping out of their grasp, the better. Still, there was one thing that needed to be taken care of first.

"Neo, quick question: do those little twerps look any different from a year ago?" The question was slightly embarrassing but still necessary; he'd been focused on hiding during their chance encounter in the forest.

Neo quickly created a copy of Little Red. Upon seeing her, Roman supposed that she wasn't quite as little as before, but she still irked him all the same. "What's that skewed belt doing? I bet she never actually uses it," Roman scoffed.

Neo ignored him and pulled up a replica of the Ice Queen, and Roman immediately took umbrage with it. "What's with that ponytail? It's incredibly blocky!"

Neo continued to disregard his quips as she summoned doppelgangers for Blake and Firecracker. "It's almost impressive how useless all those zippers are!"

Finally, Neo gave him an annoyed look. With the message quickly received, Roman set his sights on the village up ahead.

A couple minutes, and they arrived. The village was marked by its red roofs, pink walls, and stubby little... living objects of several kinds, some more familiar than others. At first, it appeared idyllic, its populace carrying on like in a normal day. Well, as normal as living toys' lives could be. However, as Neo and Roman ventured further into the village, they started to overhear comments about what had happened during an auction.

From what they could gather, the auction turned out to be a failed scam that nearly had a few of the townspeople's… questionable belongings stolen away. Some raccoonish creature by the name of Jinxy was the one behind the attempt, which was thwarted by—of all things—a talking mouse.

Amateurish, Roman thought to himself, but I like his spirit!

Rookie conmen aside, however, Roman still had to learn how this world worked, lest he and Neo get nowhere. Sure, he knew of the acres and two suns. He knew that Little Red and wretched friends were here on this world. What he didn't know, however, was just about everything else. What was that beast that Neo summoned? Why were the toys alive in the first place? Exactly how does someone steal a hug and "what it means to be loved?"

Ultimately, he had to focus; there was no time to waste on everything else aside from how to get out and what that beast was.

"E–Excuse me," Roman asked one of the townspeople, "we're new here."

"Just like the four whose purposes we don't know?" the yellow-skinned townsperson asked.

Purposes?

"In that case, this is the Ever After! And you're standing inside the..."

"The..." Roman tapped Neo's shoulder to direct her focus towards him and the inhabitant.

"...King's Acre! Welcome to our town!" The townsperson held out his tiny hand for a shake, which Roman, while confused, happily accepted.

King's Acre, eh? Roman thought as he looked around himself. Again, he was in a town, nothing special about it anyway, yet his words brought his attention back to the castle set from before. He turned around to try and spot it, and sure enough, there it was, atop a hill. Suddenly, the acre's name all made sense. So if it was called the King's Acre, then surely the last one is the Jungle Acre... right?

Roman nodded to himself. At last, the "logic" of Ever After was starting to look at least vaguely logical.

"Hey," Roman asked, eyes briefly darting towards Neo to ensure that she wouldn't try anything, "do you know anything about that beast? Big horns—" Roman gestured, imitating the beast's horns with his hands to the best of his ability and memory. "—big skull, not a big talker..."

Apparently, the townsperson recognized what he was talking about, and Roman could tell the little fellow was immediately terrified; he was backing away, his line-for-mouth frowning, and his hands were raised. Even from his simplified features, the strikingly human expressions still shone through.

"Oh, don't tell me you're talking about the Jabberwalker..." the townsperson said.

"The Jabberwalker? That's what it's called?"

"Yes! And if we fall victim to it, then we can't... ascend..."

Although he didn't show it, the living toy's fear only served to further his will to find answers. Exactly how does this "ascension" happen? Why would it be bad for someone to not ascend?

Roman's morbid curiosity soon spread to Neo, who got closer to his side in anticipation of the townsperson's next words.

"So if you can't ascend, what happens?"

"That's the end of it; we won't find a new purpose."

Just like that, it clicked again; if people of the Ever After couldn't do their jobs, ascension was a way for them to find a new one. Just like Remnant, whenever someone would quit or get fired, they either find a new job, or don't. Now, Ever After finally made sense, even if somewhat. Before, the green lightning, beige atmosphere, two suns, and strange vegetation pointed towards an altogether different world. Now, it was starting to look like a more abstract Remnant with more frivolous words.

"I know someone who lost a friend to that thing..." The building block toy shook his head. "Trust me. You don't want to run into it."

Suddenly, Roman had an idea.

"You said you had the scepter!"

"That was an arm Jinxy tried to sell me!"

Two toy soldiers were bickering to each other, completely unaware of the fact that they were lost in a forest. Yes, the shenanigans at the auspicious auction had shook everyone, the Red Prince's men included, but the scepter was still meant to be for their rightful ruler.

"How would His Majesty make use of an arm?!"

"That wasn't planned; there was a scepter that would've made for a great gift, yet turns out, it was somebody's arm!"

"So what are we supposed to do?"

"NOOOTHIIIiiiiiing..."

That day, their screams were never heard.

"The more things change," Roman remarked, "the more they stay the same."

Roman and Neo walked down the dirt path under the guises of the two toy soldiers. That fun little step in their plan had worked; now they just had to find Little Red and take her alive. One small problem: where did she and her team go? Roman had seen them in one part of the expansive forest however long ago, but there was still no sign of them, just their footsteps. Nonetheless, they had a trail to follow, and revenge to take.

"Well, let's make haste, shall we?" Roman rhetorically asked. "Can't be flushing our opportunities down the drain now, after all."

Neo was once again too lost in her thoughts to listen. This time, Roman caught a brief glimpse of her looking down, her expression dulled, yet panicked; her eyes were dilated, and her breathing was louder than it usually was. Instantly, he could tell what was going on, although to which extent he could extrapolate from her feelings was rather limited.

Ah, if only he could read one's mind.

"Are you good, Neo?" Roman asked her.

His question instantly snapped her out of it; Neo gave him a curt nod, to which he nodded back, assured that she was still responsive. However, he had some doubts in his mind.

Something's up, Roman thought, but whatever it is, I don't know. Perhaps it's the "brought back to life" business, which I'd really rather not hinge myself on, but alas... He sighed, perhaps another time would do.

Would it?

"Huh, the castle's gone. Weird. Next, please."

After things had started making sense here in the Ever After, things weren't as surprising as they once had been. Focusing on finding Little Red and her team also helped the two to block out the absurdity of the land. Their own quiet internal struggles aside, the tracks they were following curiously merged into a single set of footsteps accompanied by the tiny tracks of some small critter as they passed the now-nonexistent castle grounds.

The path led them to crossing a bridge from the King's Acre to another forest, this time one with a purple sky and teal-and-blue trees. Large mushrooms were interspersed within the trees, glowing either orange, green, blue, or the occasional purple. As they ventured through the forest, more neon mushrooms greeted them, although some of them were much tinier than the ones that stuck out among the trees.

Uncertainty continued to grow. Where was Little Red? What creature joined her in her misadventures?

They'd split up here as well, to no avail. It was starting to look hopeless: everywhere they'd gone and where they thought they'd located her, she either wasn't there or had already left a mess. Even with Roman's teleportation, there was only so much they could do, after all. He couldn't teleport to exactly the person he wanted, just coordinates and distances at any angle. Plus, getting your bearings was hard in the forest; so much of it looked the same.

Thus, when Roman teleported where Neo approximately was, he reported the bad news once again like clockwork.

"Not in there, either," he said.

Neo shook her head. Surely there has to be something, he thought. Other than a peculiarly-shaped hole in one of the huts, they weren't really finding leads. They'd tried to find footprints, but the harder ground just wouldn't give way for them.

Even Roman was ready to give up. Little Red could be far away for all they knew.

That was, until he saw something out in the distance: a huge, blossomed red flower at the top, preceded by a spiraling structure that was held up by... Nondescript Winter Holiday lights? And then there were the people riding lilypads there, one of whom wore a very distinctive red cloak and was accompanied by a strange blue-and-purple checkered cat.

Roman smiled. "There she is."