“Sho!”

“Sho!”

“Don’t leave me! Sho!”

“Please… I’m begging you… you’re the best thing that’s ever happened to me… please…”

“I lo…”

Rebecca awoke with a start. Her eyes were immediately at their maximum width as she tried to catch her breath. “…you,” she mouthed. She wiped the tears from her face, thankful for her long sleeves.

That nightmare again. It had been plaguing her constantly for the last week. No amount of etude with either Pacifica or Taika could fix it.

The idea that her precious Maestro could have been dead only served to reinforce those horrible thoughts.

But it was okay! He was okay!

And they were on a plane to reunite with him right this very second!

Taika and Pacifica slept soundly to Rebecca’s left. None of them had been getting decent sleep since he was taken. What Rebecca wouldn’t have given to have a fair fight with their assailant. She didn’t even need Shouri to take out whoever coldcocked all of them. They specifically waited until Rebecca was worn down from a hard battle to start swinging.

It only reinforced how weak whoever this was. Someone confident in their power would have faced them head-on. A self-assured opponent would have attacked them from the jump, crushing them with overwhelming might. This “Whistler” character Taika described was a coward, a weak, pathetic coward. At least that’s how Rebecca analyzed the situation.

Either way, Rebecca was ready to see her Maestro. She was going to cry, and she wasn’t ashamed of that fact. When you know what the best is like it’s hard to go back to a life without.

Ding

The fire vixen’s ears flicked.

“Ladies and gentlemen, this is your captain speaking. I have some important information to share with you about our flight. Due to a problem at the airport, we have been instructed by the air traffic control to hold our position and circle the airport until we are cleared to land. We apologize for the inconvenience and we appreciate your patience and understanding.”

Rebecca paled. A problem at the airport? That didn’t sound good. Shouri was supposed to be meeting them there! What was going on? As if to answer the fox’s silent inquiry, the captain continued speaking.

“The problem at the airport is not related to our aircraft or our crew, and we are in constant communication with the ground staff to monitor the situation. We have enough fuel and resources to maintain our altitude and speed for as long as necessary. Your safety and comfort are our top priority, and we will do everything we can to ensure a smooth and timely landing.”

The vixen frowned hard, glaring up at the “source” of the voice. It was nice that they were safe but what was going on down on the ground!?

“We will keep you updated on any changes or developments as soon as we receive them. In the meantime, please remain seated with your seatbelts fastened and follow the instructions of our cabin crew. If you have any questions or concerns, please feel free to contact one of our flight attendants. Thank you for flying with us and we hope to see you again soon.”

Nothing further came from overhead, frustrating the fire elemental. Of course, they were vague as fuck. If it didn’t endanger everyone else on the plane, Rebecca would have jumped out herself. She could easily land even from the height they were at.

“Rebby.” The fox snapped out of her bitter thoughts. A groggy Pacifica had placed her hand on the vixen’s shoulder, rubbing the sleep from her eyes.

“What’s going on?” the otter asked.

“Dunno, something’s going on at the airport we’re supposed to land at,” Rebecca grumbled.

Pacifica blinked slowly a couple of times, yawning. “Calm down, it’s probably fine.” The otter leaned back and closed her eyes.

Rebecca folded her ears back and huffed. There was nothing she could do. How frustrating.

The plane finally landed at the terminal around 4:30, a full half an hour after they were originally scheduled to arrive. The deboarding procedures were easy enough.

“I got the bags Taika, don’t worry about it.” The taller Pacifica pulled down their travel bags from the overhead compartment.

“S-si…” Taika trembled, regarding her hands with trepidation.

Rebecca sighed quietly to herself. That was gonna be a fun conversation with Shouri. Though there was that nagging anxiety in the fire element’s heart. “Do you feel him Taika?” she asked of her lunar counterpart.

Taika silently acknowledged the request, her rhythm flaring up. After a tense moment, she shook her head with disappointment. “Non… he should be here, right?” The lunar began to share in Rebecca’s anxiety.

“It should be fine, right?” Pacifica tried to keep her optimism up, but it was slowly eroding.

The trio disembarked and found their temporary Maestro, Emily.

“Have you heard anything from him?” Rebecca immediately asked.

Emily shook her head. “He was supposed to meet us at the gate, but I can’t find him. The Maestro looked around, hoping she missed him.

“EMMY!” Ritika and Albarich ran up.

“What’s going on?” Emily rushed over to her two Resonators.

“That delay – it looks like he was involved,” Albarich informed the group.

“WHAT?!” came the three shrieks from behind the Maestro.

“Yeah yeah! There was some crazy battle and get this – the Null Ultimate was used!” Ritika told the group.

Panic was replaced by confusion. “Wait… that couldn’t have been Shouri then,” Rebecca realized.

“Yeah yeah! We don’t even have our ultimates!” Pacifica pointed out.

“Even Colette said we should have them, but we don’t because it hasn’t been long enough,” Taika recalled.

“Wait, does that mean someone used the ultimate on him?” Rebecca voiced the only obvious answer.

Ritika shook her head. “No, apparently someone watched the whole thing happen outside and said some blue-haired chick attacked them-”

Taika’s eyes widened at the description; her hair slowly began to float as her breathing began to deepen. Rebecca turned around and grabbed her fellow fox by the shoulders. “Pacifica!”

A case of literary theft: this tale is not rightfully on Amazon; if you see it, report the violation.

The otter joined the fire element hugging Taika tightly and focusing her rhythm solely on calming down the fox. “Shhh shhh, it’s okay Taika.”

“-they annihilated her using the ultimate spell.”

The dramatic trio stopped.

“Che?” Taika’s episode ended, as she stared at the brunette cat in shock.

“Yeah, what the guy told us, is ‘the Maestro with the green jacket and his Resonator’ pinned her down with that shadow arrow spell and then evaporated her with the Null Ultimate,” Ritika told them. “You can still see the hole they left from casting it apparently,” she added.

Emily pinched her brow. “For the love of the stars…” She shook her head. “That boy doesn’t know how to do anything in half steps,” the woman groaned.

“He was not ready to cast it though,” Albarich spoke up. “He collapsed right after.”

And then confusion returned to panic. “Wh-where is he?” Rebecca managed to speak.

“They took him to the hospital apparently,” the lunar dragon calmly informed the panicking trio.

“Again?!” Rebecca barked.

“At least we know where he’s at now.” Pacifica nodded.

“I hope I’m able to heal him this time.” Taika once more stared at her hands with unease.

----------------------------------------

Shouri stared at the ceiling of the emergency room at the local hospital. The Maestro wondered how this kept happening to him.

He closed his eyes. Whatever solution was being pumped into his veins was keeping him alive. But he learned a valuable lesson today: he could not handle casting Ultimate level spells. He guessed that if he had a rhythm read-out like Resonators, he’d be at -100% or close to it.

There was a moment when he thought he’d accidentally killed himself. He knew he was alive the moment he woke up and was being given the third degree by the local authorities. At least there were witnesses, so they'd just be taking a fine out of his bank account to cover the damages. Maybe they thought ending up in the hospital like this was punishment enough? He wasn't going to test that theory any time soon.

“Fuck,” he cursed quietly.

With such little rhythm, everything around him was dull, muffled. Rhythm as a sense was so peculiar.

At least his brain still functioned. For now.

His eyes opened again. Despite how it all ended up, things could have gone far worse – the police had been extremely lenient with him, he realized. Street fighting was one thing; casting an Ultimate level spell within the city limits was beyond reckless. Especially in front of an airport. What if that spell clipped an incoming plane?

Blood on his hands.

Speaking of… Whistler wasn’t alive? The result of their attack on her was a rain of machine parts.

“Vienna,” he called out.

Silence.

She must not be watching him right now. He did wonder what she was scheming. Only because her track record meant nothing good. Her tuner was missing from his person.

“I went ahead and got you a real tuner.”

He couldn’t verify the authenticity of that claim, but knowing Vienna for the short time he did she was almost certainly crazy enough to go steal a real tuner. So much happened in the last couple of hours it was exhausting. All he wanted to do was sleep, but somewhere in town, his Resonators were probably looking for him.

And once again he had no way to tell them where he was at.

So, he was stuck in the slow ER. Thanks to the privacy curtains surrounding each patient, he had near zero visual stimuli – only able to listen to the ambient sounds of others being tended to.

Some things he overheard while he lay there:

-Water Resonator suffering from Evaporation Illness

-Maestro getting his broken leg healed after jumping from the roof of a building

-Young boy with rhythm sensitivity being rhythm burnt by accident

-A “code blue” followed by a lot of running and shouting.

Notably, he didn’t hear anything about Miro. He was hoping to hear anything about an Earth Natural, but on that front all he got was radio silence.

A nurse came by and changed out the bag on his IV. At which point Shouri’s itchy curiosity got the better of him.

“Excuse me,” he called out to the nurse.

“Yes?” they asked, without needing to stop their current task.

“There should have been an Earth-element Natural brought here before me. Do you know anything about him?” the Maestro inquired, sitting up to try and meet the nurse’s eyes.

“Hmm…” the nurse hummed to themselves.

“Please, can you find out? He’s my friend and he protected me,” Shouri pleaded. The nurse didn’t seem to acknowledge Shouri. “I’ll sleep easier knowing he’s alright.”

Finally, the nurse addressed the pleading Maestro. “Let me go check on him.” They stepped to the privacy curtain. “I’ll be right back,” they said before vanishing back into the ER.

Shouri let out a breath of relief, allowing his head to plop back onto the thin pillow. Vienna brought him here at least, that was a bit of weight off his chest. He wasn’t sure how well this hospital was equipped to deal with Naturals. As far as he understood, any Maestro-based magic was poison to a Natural – including healing magic. That was a lot of options off the table for immediate treatment for Miro.

“He’s stable,” the nurse’s voice snapped Shouri out of his thoughts, as he sat up quickly in a daze.

“They were able to treat him?” the concerned Maestro questioned.

“Yes, we’re used to treating Naturals here. They come in every so often. Usually during the night after being attacked by Scherzando,” the nurse explained.

Back down Shouri went. “Thank you,” he let out.

With his primary concern addressed, he could rest easy. Whistler was taken out before Taika and the others arrived, Miro was recovering, and he could be reasonably sure Vienna was somewhere around keeping an eye on things.

For the moment, the best thing he could do was focus his efforts on recovering his rhythm. To accomplish that goal, he drifted off to sleep.