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Chapter 151

Pacifica found it difficult to open her eyes that morning. She was exhausted. Sleep didn’t feel like enough these days. Not with Rebecca running her ragged every day. If not for her water element bolstering her natural healing capabilities, she knew she would have been in a world of hurt.

That thought out of the way, she couldn’t even tell if all this intensive training was doing anything for her. The otter certainly didn’t feel like it was making an appreciable difference. She felt sluggish and frail compared to her vulpine counterparts.

Was she the dead weight of the team?

Taika was making visible leaps and bounds with her ad-Lib, and Rebecca was Rebecca – they were both incredible Resonators who earned their place by Shouri’s side.

And then there was her - what was Pacifica even doing here?

“Pacifica,” Rebecca’s voice snapped the otter out of her self-admonishment.

“Huh?” Before Pacifica realized it, she was being yanked out of bed.

“Where are we going?” asked the otter as Rebecca dragged her down the walkway, both girls still sporting their pajamas.

“Training,” Rebecca said gruffly, back towards her captive.

A sense of dread overtook the poor otter girl. Not again.

However, they didn’t end up out in the fields like Pacifica had braced herself for. Instead, they went back to the training room they had been taken to under Talys and Nina’s tutelage.

“Why are we here?” Pacifica asked as her hand was released.

“Told you, training,” Rebecca replied, making her way to the center of the room. She stopped, her back towards her fellow Resonator.

“I don’t think there’s enough room to run here…” Pacifica noted, humming and frowning. “Also, I don’t want to get my pajamas all sweaty,” she added, hugging herself.

“Well, it’s a good thing we’re not running around then.” Rebecca turned around; her expression neutral. “C’mere,” she held out her hands for her fellow Resonator.

Pacifica slowly trudged over, keeping her vision trained down. She didn’t want to look Rebecca in the eyes.

As soon as she was in range, Rebecca took hold of Pacifica’s hands. “Breathe, focus on my rhythm,” whispered the fire fox.

The warmth was unbearable – not Rebecca’s but her own. The sweat pooling in her palms felt awful and she silently hoped the other girl wouldn’t mention it. Her heart raced as she feared the impending disappointment. Regardless, the otter submitted to the fox’s whims, her eyes closing without her realizing it.

“Take the rhythm of the room in and cast that bubble spell,” said Rebecca.

“Why?”

“Don’t question me, just do it.”

The water element did as instructed, focusing on making the bubble spell Rebecca requested of her. If nothing else the craft of spellcasting could distract her mind from the crushing reality of failure. After all, the sooner she got this over with the sooner they could get back to the status quo.

“There we go, that’s progress,” she heard Rebecca say.

When Pacifica opened her eyes, they kept going until they had reached their maximum width. Between the two girls stood a little bubble fox, its head pointed up as if to look up at the otter who had a hand in its summon.

“We… did it?” Pacifica shook her head, blinking as if to dismiss the illusion sitting before her. The beast remained, awaiting its commands.

“We weren’t far off to be fair,” Rebecca said, finally releasing her captive’s hands. She knelt to take in the features of their new joint summon. The bubble fox seemed so fragile; then again so did the flame foxes. Just like their fire element counterparts, Rebecca was able to scoop the beast into her arms all the same. Despite its body being made of large, transparent bubbles, it felt quite solid.

“Wanna hold him?” Rebecca offered, holding out the rhythm beast.

“Uh sure,” Pacifica accepted the bubble-based life form. Oddly the first thing she noticed was it was warm. It was wet to the touch, not sudsy like when she played with soap bubbles as a kid.

The otter girl studied the canine shape of the beast in closer detail, holding it up in the air to see how its little joints connected together. “If I was a fire element and summoned one of these, it’d be shaped differently right?” asked Pacifica.

Rebecca nodded. “Yeah.” Now it was Rebecca’s turn to study, her eyes tracing Pacifica’s body. “Uhhh, I dunno what it’d look like though,” she admitted.

“Me neither,” said Pacifica.

The two stood there awkwardly for a moment, shuffling their feet as their gazes wandered.

“So, uh, now what?” Pacifica asked.

“Wanna go show Sho?” Rebecca suggested, furrowing a brow at the weirdness of the sentence she had just spoken.

“Oh! Good idea!”

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“Hey, Sho! Look what we did!”

Shouri opened his eyes on this Friday morning. He blinked a couple of times, trying to clear the fogginess from his vision. Taika grumbled and slunk under the covers, keeping a vice grip on her Maestro. Pacifica and Rebecca were holding a something, but he wasn’t quite sure what exactly the something was.

“What am I looking at?” he asked, blinking several more times.

“It’s a bubble fox!” the two girls exclaimed.

Rebecca set it on the bed and allowed it to wander around.

“It’s too early to break the rules,” Shouri mumbled, taking hold of Taika and joining her under the covers.

Pacifica and Rebecca shared a glance followed by a mischievous smirk. Before Shouri knew it, he was surrounded on all sides by his clingy Resonators. “Mrrrrgh,” he weakly protested.

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The quartet sat on the bed, the bubble fox in the middle. “Okay, we’re up,” Shouri said with a slow blink. “What exactly am I looking at?” he asked.

“We told you already,” Rebecca started.

“It’s a bubble fox!” Pacifica exclaimed.

“Well I can see that, but how and what?” questioned the Maestro, still trying to process being conscious.

“The twins showed us when we first got here that you can combine the summon spell with the bubble one to make these guys,” Rebecca informed him.

“They also made them out of ice, water, and smoke too,” Pacifica chimed in.

Shouri hummed in thought, observing the new rhythm beast carefully. He hadn’t ever heard of this phenomenon and he had done his fair share of research to make sure it was safe to use the base-level version of this spell for extended periods with Rebecca.

As if to answer his internal monologue, Pacifica spoke up, “Nina and Talys told us that this form of the spell has been lost in the wider world.”

“Something about etude being ostriched?” Rebecca couldn’t recall the correct word.

“Ostracized?” Shouri guessed, earning a quick (albeit slightly flustered) nod from Rebecca.

That was a whole new rabbit hole to consider. How could spells even get lost…?

What they said was concerning though but still lined up with his core experiences – Riterrans were weird and cagey about etude. Why? Etude was mutually beneficial for both Maestro and Resonator. Their group right here was a shining example of that.

Shouri’s strong curiosity itched fiercely. Though he wanted to learn the mechanics of this spell. It was one of Rebecca’s favorites after all. The way she brightened up whenever she got to cast it – he noticed.

That was when an idea hit him. The forms they talked about – those were all basic level spells. He had a theory and wanted to test it immediately.

“Girls, hold hands,” he spoke up.

Rebecca and Pacifica did as instructed, but Shouri shook his head. “Taika, you too.”

“Me?” she pointed to herself, blinking with surprise.

“Yes, form a circle.” Shouri shuffled back to give the trio room.

The girls linked hands, closing their eyes, letting the rhythm flow between them in a circle as they awaited their Maestro’s command.

“Famiglio Incendio

Meravigliare BollaLa Bella Vita , Presto !” Shouri called out in tre corde.

All at once the three Resonators received their Maestro’s rhythm – what was different was they all felt the rhythm links being established. It was strange to think that they weren’t only cognizant of their rhythm networks, but the rhythm networks of the others in the circle.

Even so, that didn’t distract them from the task they had just been asked to perform.

Rebecca made the soul.

Pacifica made the body.

Taika added the finishing touch.

When the trio opened their eyes, what they saw was beyond their wildest imaginations.

A rhythm beast, just like the ones that Rebecca had summoned before, but rather than being made of fire or water, this beast was made of shimmering, warm light. Just being in the presence of this new creature relaxed the trio in a way only Taika’s healing spells offered them.

“A… healing summon?” Rebecca braved speaking.

“We can… triple cast?” Pacifica spoke slowly.

“Together?” Taika’s grip on her fellow Resonator’s hands tightened, trembling in their grasp.

Shouri chuckled, smiling warmly. He really didn’t deserve to be in the presence of such amazing people.

Meravigliare Bolla

Presto – Allegro – Moderato (New!)

Famiglio Incendio

Presto – Allegro – Moderato – Adagio (New!)