Roman entered the flower alongside Neo.

He was still shaken by his previous train of thought. In fact, it was more like a trainwreck of thought; whatever came to his head, whether it was his mortality or anything about a dream, had derailed whatever plans Neo had for Little Red.

Now with the brat's friends all grown up again, they'd need to regroup and come up with something else. If the cat had thrown a wrench in the works, the knight on the rabbit-deer finished the job by sending them over the cliff.

Who even was that fellow, anyway? He seemed normal—well, as normal as one could get in this messed-up place—but who really knew at this point? At least he'd get an answer soon, as they'd just hit a dead end. Roman hovered just behind a corner as the figure unmasked, revealing an aged face and graying blond hair.

Very helpful, Roman sarcastically thought. "Say, Neo," he whispered, "any idea who that guy is?"

Neo peeked her head alongside Roman's to catch a view of the figure. When she turned around, he was ready to say something, but then she continued looking at him. Whichever expression he caught, he saw utter confusion, then burning curiosity take form. "So, is that a 'maybe?'"

In response, she conjured a miniature illusion—a tall and lanky teenage male figure with messy blond hair wearing a hoodie under upper-body armor—in the palm of her hand. It was clear, detailed, and absolutely no more familiar than the actual armored bloke. "Doesn't ring a bell. Perhaps a bit more context?" Roman led on.

Neo created a second miniature next to the first—this time, it was Little Red. The two locked arms together and danced in a circle with cartoonish smiles for a few seconds before Red spontaneously shattered into pieces, Neo grinning as she collapsed. "So you're saying he's a friend of Red's," Roman concluded.

The remaining figure suddenly crouched over, and a walking cane appeared in his hand. "…who is inexplicably much older than the rest of them," Roman tacked on. "Wish I could say that's the strangest thing I've seen recently…"

He glanced back towards the still-nameless knight. Their huddle had just broken up, and they started to head back out. Without bothering to ask—it was automatic at this point—Roman crouched down beside Neo, and she hid the two of them behind an illusion of a large flower. Not the most inconspicuous of disguises, admittedly, but Little Red and friends all seemed a little preoccupied, as none of them even glanced his way.

After a handful of seconds passed, the duo wordlessly trailed them out of the cave. The paladin immediately started to direct the rest of his team towards an open, grassy field with storm clouds hanging above it on the horizon. Beyond it lay a white expanse dotted with trees that seemed… very sharp and angular? Eh, par for the course at this point.

"Hmm. We could really use a head start… Neo, mind if I try something?" Roman asked, extending his hand towards Neo. As she grabbed it, Roman focused on a tree near the edge of the strange forest, and before he knew it, he was there, with Neo at his side. Now that he had a much better look, he could tell that the trees were made almost entirely of paper. How very odd.

There were also several buildings—literal paper houses, probably—in the distance. More concerningly, a dam was right behind the paper houses. Roman scratched his head; why would a paper population settle near a dam to begin with?

A dam that they even heard faint creaking from?

No matter, they already had a piece in the plan puzzle. If the dam was on its way out, someone would try to fix it eventually. Thus, he saw two options: either directly attack the dam itself or distract the would-be maintainers long enough to let the dam break and release its water into the village.

Nothing like a good set piece to play around with. Assuming this was where Little Red and her team were headed, things could only grow much funner from there on.

"How long do you think this will hold?" Roman asked. Neo held up one finger. He could only smile at that.

"Perfect, we have time. I don't suppose you can conjure up the home office?" Roman sarcastically suggested.

He meant it as a joke, but walls started to materialize out of nowhere, and within a matter of seconds, the two were inside a perfect recreation of their apartment in Vale. Roman took a moment to soak it all in. Neo had created quite the replica: everything from the furniture to the flowerpot in the corner had been perfectly recreated. Heck, he could make out the basic schematics for the Death Ray tacked to the planning board!

Roman whistled. "Well, that was certainly impressive."

He took a seat on the couch. "Neo," he announced. "Time we get planning."

"Problem 1: the cat."

Roman drew a rough illustration of the cat rubbing their hands together and a sad, similarly crudely-drawn Ruby on the planning board. "Consider this: they want to break Little Red as much as they can, and from the looks of it, they're getting ever so close to their goal. If so... we maaay have to get her sooner than they can."

Neo considered the matter. Someone else was trying to get to Ruby before her? No, she couldn't let that happen; giving up on such lucrative chances for revenge over whatever happened to Ruby was too good to give up. She wanted to get back at her for taking away the best person to happen to her in her entire life. She wanted to make her feel the pain she'd gone through.

She wanted to destroy her.

"Problem 2: her weirdo friends," Roman continued. "For all we know, they could be much stronger than they were when they destroyed our early Nondescript Winter Holiday present of a robot. Add in this... middle-aged man? Well, so-called knight they have by their side, and any direct confrontation we try may very well end up in Ever After's Funniest Home Videos."

Roman was right; fighting them all head-on was a nonstarter. As much as Neo wanted to bask in the glory of Ruby losing her friends one by one right in front of her, it was better to play it smart, just as things used to be. Plus, that kind of dramatic group melee just wasn't her style.

"And problem... 3..."

There it was. It was happening again; Roman was once again losing himself again in his own world. This time, Neo braced herself for that exact moment, which, to say the least, was a cause for concern.

"Am I alive...?"

Three words. Three words was enough to spring Neo to action, grabbing his arm and tugging at it. Yet, nothing seemed to have an effect.

"Neo– Neo, listen–" As Roman tried to talk, she squeezed his arm, forming cracks that slowly resealed themselves. "Do you think I was ever alive to begin with? Am I even real?"

With little choice, Neo quickly conjured a white sign with a pink outline and forced text to appear on it as fast as she could. As Roman remained shaken to the core—"Am I really?!" he was desperately shouting—and on the verge of another panic attack, Neo frantically let go of Roman's arm and started waving the sign in front of his face, tearing up. "You are alive!" she'd written. "You are real to me, them, and the world around us! Nothing has changed that!"

It took him a while—the shaking certainly didn't help—but Roman read the words on the sign... and stayed unconvinced. "...Am I, really?" he asked, doubt apparent in his low voice. "So if I'm real and alive, then what does your Semblance say about the dead? Are they alive, too?"

The very idea of summoning dead people struck again like green lightning. Neo was breathing heavily again, and this time, it didn't take long until she was already testing his hypothesis, half to hopefully prove him wrong and half to satisfy her own morbid curiosity. First was Pyrrha Nikos, who... stood there and waved to her and Roman like they were mere strangers, saying "Hellooo~!" in a sing-song voice?

What?

Neo blinked in utter confusion. Surely, this must've been a fluke; her Semblance brought back Roman, but not the so-called "Invincible" Girl herself? And even if she did, wouldn't she be fresh from whatever incident had killed her and panicking, trying to figure out where she is now?

Well, she was still on edge. The possibility that her Semblance could revive people in the form of illusions was still firmly on the table.

So she tested it by summoning Ironwood. Then Penny, Clover, and Leonardo Lionheart.

Then Ozpin.

And yet, they stood calm. No dramatic freakout like with Roman, no realizations that they had ever died, nothing. They stood there like she expected an illusion to.

…One last test. Reaching into her bleak swath of memories from all her time before meeting Roman, she brought forth the second and third worst people to ever be in her life: Jimmy and Carmel Vanille.

Rather than stand in place and wave at Neo with a happy expression, the illusions gave her a disapproving glare. That's all it was, though: a disapproving glare. No words of admonishment, punishment, or anything else.

And so it was. Whatever nigh-unknowable circumstance that made Roman the exception apparently wasn't in the mood for an encore.

Roman also got the point. "Well," he concluded, "I suppose that's that…" He stepped back to the whiteboard. "Now where were we? Ah, yes: depressed Little Red, a cat that wants to add to her depression, and her friends doing… whatever. Meanwhile, we have the element of surprise, your Semblance that's somehow powerful enough to bring the dead to life…" He understandably trailed off for a moment before getting back on track. "…and my dashing good looks."

Neo rolled her eyes. Still, that completely unnecessary comment aside, it was a reminder of the obstacles riddling the path to revenge, namely the cat and the friends. If only there was a way to separate them…

An idea sprung to mind. Not an effective idea for the present, but a very good one after the metaphorical road was cleared. She summoned another whiteboard by her side, painting it with the same vivid image that was rapidly forming in her mind. In only a matter of moments, it was complete.

Roman analyzed the board. On occasion, he let out a "hm" or an "ah," and grew progressively more amazed. "Wow," he said at last, "a tea party with Little Red and the recently dead?"

The rhyme was not lost on her. Ha ha, very funny, Neo mused.

"Wait, what if the cat gets involved?"

That was a much better question. Ideally, they'd find a way to eliminate the cat beforehand, but if not… Neo did a bit more brainstorming, came up with a contingency plan soon enough, and projected it onto an additional, smaller whiteboard she held in her left hand. She raised it up for Roman to take another look at.

He nodded after a few seconds. "Yeah, that'll work," he concurred. "And how will we isolate Little Red in the first place?"

Neo shrugged; she really hadn't thought that part out. Roman, however, chuckled. "Eh, we'll figure something out," he assured. "Paper houses are quite easy to knock down. Besides…"

"The best plans always involve a dose of improvisation."

NOTE FROM MYST: Yeah, I know what you're thinking: "Three months for not even 2,000 words?!" Yep... look, writing is hard, and we're both juggling multiple other fics. Fortunately, I'm quite confident that the next chapter will be both longer and not take three whole months this time around. See you all then!

–Myst.