Another “evening” fell upon the temple. Shouri and Rebecca relaxed on the couch, watching TV as usual. Taika laid on the bed, reading something on her tuner. Finally, Pacifica was capitalizing on the hot tub (and nobody was surprised).

Shouri had an arm draped around Rebecca’s shoulder, and his other hand held his tuner.

A soft beep alerted him to a text message, however upon checking it, he soon discovered he had been added to a group conversation, against his will.

Elijah joined the chat room!

Colette joined the chat room!

Emily joined the chat room!

Shouri joined the chat room!

Me: what?

Elijah: I thought it’d be wise to keep tabs on where everyone is.

Emily: hang on!

Colette: Hey! A group text! No one’s ever invited me to one of these

Rebecca noticed her Maestro glaring at her tuner. “What’s up bossman?” she said while peeking at the screen.

“Elijah added me to a fucking group chat,” grumbled Shouri.

“Is that really that bad?” Rebecca chuckled.

“It means I have to socialize.”

“You could just hug me more,” suggested the vixen.

The brazen nature of the request earned a smirk from the boy. “Perhaps. I guess I do owe it to Emily though to not leave her alone with Elijah and Colette.” He paused. “Unless she did something while she had you to earn your ire?”

“Nah, she was a little angel, text away,” Rebecca waved at the tuner. “But I’m gonna be nosy,” she warned.

“That’s fine, it’ll be fun to have a commentary buddy.”

And so the two caught up on the conversation thus far.

Emily: Why are we here again?

Colette: Dunno, this wasn’t my idea.

Emily: So it’s Mr.Klein then, cause we all know Shouri wouldn’t.

“Hey uncalled for.” Shouri frowned at the screen.

“She’s not wrong though,” Rebecca said.

“It’s true, but she shouldn’t say it,” Shouri countered.

Elijah: After the most recent news cycle, I figure it’s best if we keep tabs on one another.

Colette: I’ll say. I didn’t think that Vail would attack me like that!

Emily: Wait, what happened?

Me: tldr, she got jumped by a sprite

Emily: No, don’t tldr me! I want details!

Me: Get in line! Ms. College Degree over here couldn’t exposit her way out of a paper bag!

Emily: idk about that, she’s been typing for like ever

Elijah: Either way, we should consider how to address this situation.

“I have a bad feeling about how long Colette has been typing for,” Shouri commented.

“Maybe she’s slow on the keyboard? Surprised you’re as fast as you are with the touchscreen keys,” Rebecca noted.

“The faster I type, the faster everyone leaves me the hell alone,” he boasted.

Rebecca was content to chuckle at her Maestro’s pile of dust he called his willpower.

When they turned their attention back to the screen, Colette had attacked.

Colette: So it was crazy! We were heading back to campus, but got a call from one of my professors who asked to meet me down at a local park. Now that wasn’t too crazy because we’ve done that before to observe various rhythm users out in the wild, but when we got there the professor attacked me while my back was turned! Luckily Kaira sensed something was amiss and saved me and we managed to get away from Vail who had dropped her disguise. It was weird because I didn’t think sprites had the ability to take on other’s forms, so I did some research and they don’t! Though sprite bodies are only toy sized from my research. Not full on melomorphic sized bodies like Whistler and Vail have. It does make me wonder how much those cybernetic bodies cost, as a small sprite body can run in the upwards of tens of thousands of notes for simple ones. It seems like their bodies mimicked organic systems to the degree of being near indistinguishable from stock standard Resonators. Now what really fascinated me was that disguise feature Vail had, it seems like whoever built her added additional features that weren’t her Resonator powers, but drew on the same well of power as them! If the theory holds true it seems like it could be possible for someone to make a sprite with all kinds of crazy powers!

“Holy shit it just keeps going,” Rebecca tore her eyes away from the screen, unable to read the thick block of text.

“The short of it is, Colette thinks whoever actually built Whistler and Vail’s bodies had a lot of money and know-how to do so,” Shouri said, his eyes scanning the text wall for any other pertinent info.

“Someone with a lot of money… like the Klein Foundation?” Rebecca questioned.

Shouri hummed at the thought. It did seem to line up, considering the Klein Foundation had basically unlimited money and was in the game of Resonator battles.

As if to answer that line of thinking, a new message came in.

Elijah: I do have some news on that front.

Emily: News about what?

Elijah: The arm parts we recovered from Naiza Stadium did match specs of a canceled project we had initially funded. As Ms. Severine had pointed out, it does cost quite a pretty sharp to build sprite bodies. The proposed benefit with the larger models is they make excellent referees.

Me: Buuuuut?

Elijah: The costs were extraordinarily expensive. To put it in perspective, a human sized sprite body with the level of articulation and sensors ran about the price it took to create Zino.

Emily: And that was?

Elijah: Around 100 million, give or take.

Emily: That… is a lot…

Elijah: And that’s why Father nearly killed me when Zino was subject to Feroce

“What would you do with 100 million notes Sho?” Rebecca inquired.

“Buy an island and never talk to anyone again,” he replied without missing a beat.

“Why am I not surprised?” Rebecca laughed.

Me: We’re not asking the right questions here.

Colette: What would those be?

Me: Who could spend that kind of money without anyone noticing? It wasn't a one time purchase either, the Whistler in Alspo had both arms. They're being maintained.

The chat went silent for a couple of minutes. They had already established well enough that someone spent a fortune building Vail and Whistler’s bodies.

“You’re not wrong,” Rebecca hummed in thought. “That’s a lot of money to just evaporate.”

“I don’t think this line of questioning is gonna get us anywhere, but at least we might be able to wring someone’s neck up for the shit we went through,” Shouri grumbled.

“That’s for sure,” agreed Rebecca, mirroring her Maestro’s irritation.

Elijah: I suppose I can look into the Klein Foundation’s records and see if anything strange popped up. Do we have an idea of how long the two sprites have been public? That may give me a starting point to work with.

Colette: I can do some digging and find out.

Me: Speaking of people related to the lightning duo, what about Ilea?

Stolen content warning: this tale belongs on Royal Road. Report any occurrences elsewhere.

Colette: What about him?

Me: How long has he been doing this Feroce thing for?

Colette: I got involved in it after winter break this year. From what some of the others said, Dr. Vim brought the project to our school since our Rhythm Studies program is the best in the continent.

Me: Why?

“Why?” Shouri voiced out loud. “Why did he want to research Feroce so badly to get a whole college involved?”

“I don’t understand why that’s a big deal. Isn’t it normal for colleges to study stuff?” Rebecca questioned.

“Well yes, but I still think Ilea is suspicious as fuck,” Shouri said, glaring at the screen.

Rebecca hummed in thought. She was glad she was etuding with Shouri at the moment, as her normal brain fog was lifted, giving her a clear picture of what was going on. “I do admit, every time we’ve seen him he feels… wrong somehow.”

“Pacifica said his emotions felt crafted? I’m not sure what exactly that means, but that is a huge red flag to me – like he has something to hide,” Shouri recalled.

“Right, and Kaira agreed with her,” Rebecca added.

“Hmmm…” the two hummed.

Their train of thought was interrupted by a new string of messages.

Colette: Dr. Vim is a rhythm researcher, so it seems pretty obvious to me why he’d be interested in feroce as a condition.

Emily: Well it’s not obvious to the rest of us, spill the tea girl.

Colette: Feroce is caused by extreme Aleatoria in Resonators. Aleatoria is a class of conditions that affect rhythm intake and outflow in Melopomorphs. Traditionally Feroce was found in very rare scenarios where a Resonator was not only pushed to a breaking point emotionally, but was compromised in some unknown way.

Emily: Traditionally? This thing has existed in the past then?

Colette: Yes, but it wasn’t well understood, and the condition usually never went past the first stage.

Emily: What changed?

Elijah: Someone began purposefully inflicting it on Resonators.

The chat went silent. Rebecca grabbed Shouri’s free hand and gripped it tightly – it had suddenly become clammy and he trembled.

It took a good minute or two for the conversation to resume.

Colette: From what some of the recovered Resonators testified to, they were tortured. Those that broke correctly were kept and further studied. Those that didn’t were taken elsewhere.

Emily: Where’s elsewhere?

Elijah: For the sake of all of our collective sanity, let’s leave that point there and focus on the problem. Someone is out there purposefully creating a plague.

Emily: Right, there was something back in Naiza about other resonators catching this thing and some being immune?

Colette: Right. Some Resonators are just born with a natural disposition that prevents them from succumbing to the condition, while other Resonators can gain this immunity factor by catching the illness and being cured of it.

Elijah: Like Zino and Shouri’s trio.

Me: Quick question, Rebecca also has the immunity factor?

Rebecca perked up at the sudden question from her Maestro.

“You were watching over us, but you weren’t directly in the dream thing. Taika and Pacifica I get being immune to the thing,” Shouri laid out his thoughts for her.

“R-right,” Rebecca said uneasily.

Colette: Yes, Rebecca’s immunity factor felt the same as Pacifica and Taika’s. Why do you ask?

Me: Rebecca was never in the dream with us. She more or less wasn’t involved.

Colette: Oooh, that’s fascinating! I wonder if it’s because your etude is so strong that Rebecca’s rhythm synched up with Taika and Pacifica’s, therefore gaining the same immunities as them!

Elijah: Seems quite convenient.

Emily: Like a true hero!

Me: Cut it out Ems

Colette: I also wonder if that’s why you’ve been able to cure Feroce resonators so fast. They just fall into line with the rest of your team after being with them for an evening. You don’t even need your whole group with you as Rebecca and Pacifica were able to cure Resonators all on their own. But also every Feroce you fought in Naiza was cured shortly after you took them down, so I wonder what the factor is there.

“I knew about Mila, I guess we never asked about those other two we fought,” Shouri mumbled.

“I guess it’s good that we did. Would have sucked for them if we beat their asses and they were still Feroce,” Rebecca shrugged.

“Yeah…”

Elijah: Either way, I’m not content to allow this to continue. Despite our best efforts, the Klein Foundation can’t get any local law enforcement on the matter.

Me: Useless as usual.

Emily: That’s incredibly suspicious. Why the terra isn’t your government doing anything about it?

Me: I didn’t vote for them, they’re not my government.

Emily: You know what I mean Shouri!

Elijah: They keep citing lack of evidence. They’re quite firm they can’t even start investigating without at least a shred of information that this is being done intentionally and not just individualized cases of abuse.

Me: I know of at least one Maestro who spoke with someone to purchase his feroce resonator.

Colette: Me too! I could send their information over?

Elijah: I have been in contact with some as well, but from what our representatives have been told, that still isn’t enough. There’s been some muttering about self-incrimination if they testify due to the fact that they used the feroce spells.

“Really hate our legal system,” Shouri grumbled.

“I don’t know anything about it,” admitted Rebecca.

“It’s just all a bunch of red tape and hanging on to loose interpretations of the ‘law’, which is whatever the hell they decide it is this week.”

Rebecca frowned, mulling that over. The world was more complicated than she had thought. Shouri mentioned that trying to take down Ilea Vim may get them arrested. But if he was truly the bad guy, why would they get in trouble for it? Weren’t they being the good guys here?

Elijah: Something our legal team cooked up is abusing a loophole in Hunter’s law to arrest him that way.

Me: Oh?

Colette: Oh! If a hunter catches a criminal in the act of committing a crime, they can act as law enforcement and perform apprehensions and arrests in lieu of proper authorities.

Emily: Wait, what does that mean?

Me: It’s how I could beat up those Feroce maestros and their resonators without anyone batting an eye. They were not only using feroce spells, but were illegally battling in a public area, reckless endangerment of the public, and all that.

Emily: I really need to read up on hunter’s law then ahaha…

Me: You’d better, you have a hunter’s license now – you can be drafted at any time for emergency work.

Emily: I can WHAT?!

Elijah: The princess has gotten herself in trouble yet again

Emily: Shut the fuck up Klein.

Elijah: Shouri is a terrible influence on you

Colette: I also have a hunter license. I guess I can help with this?

Me: I know a ton of people all over with hunter’s licenses

“Wait, who do we know?” Rebecca raised a brow, wondering what her Maestro was up to.

“Makani, Lina, and all them in Canolapra, Vince, Solana, and probably a bunch of other people I’m forgetting about. I know Vince would come running if I told him about it, and if not Mila would drag him back here,” Shouri said.

“So what’s your idea?” Rebecca questioned.

“Still kinda thinking that through,” admitted Shouri quietly.

Elijah: Pass me their information, Shouri. I’d like to vet them myself and determine who we’ll be bringing.

Emily: Huh?

Colette: What did I miss?

Me: Isn’t it obvious?

“No! It’s not!” Rebecca shook her Maestro, who kept typing despite it all.

Me: We’re gonna need a team.