“Hrm…” Emily furrowed her brow, studying the message on her tuner.

“What’s up, Emmy?” asked Ritika, hovering over her Maestro’s shoulder.

It was another bright sunny day. Emily and her trio of Resonators were having a blast exploring Unis-Resonne, never having left Kalanichi until after they left with Shouri and his trio. However what weighed on their minds was the mission Shouri sought to complete: the halt of the intentional creation of feroce Resonators by one Ilea Vim.

It was tough. Everything Emily had found painted the guy in a positive light. He was a little standoffish, sure, but in terms of rhythm research, he was second to none.

One disturbing thing she found was the appraisal of the man’s power, supposedly having the potential to best even the Grand Masters – Riterra’s finest Maestros.

What was such a powerful figure doing messing with a condition as dangerous as Feroce? Nothing good she imagined.

“Elijah says it’s probably legally dangerous for us to go after that Ilea Vim guy without a plan,” Emily told her cat.

Ritika hummed, pursing her lips while she thought it through. “I guess we can’t just punch him in the face and drag him into a jail cell. We gotta prove he’s been doing something wrong,” she reasoned.

Emily nodded, poring over the information sent by Elijah again. “Okay gang, we’re going to Lyreann!” the Maestro announced, rising to her feet.

“Why?” said Albarich, looking up from his own tuner as he lay on the bed.

“That’s where that Colette girl said she got attacked. We’re gonna go make a citizen’s inquiry about that attack,” Emily explained.

“See previous question,” the dragon snarked back.

“Simple, their law enforcement branch has to tell us the results of the investigation. So we can find out what they learned and piece it together with the help of Klein’s people,” the princess beamed, pride welling up at her plan.

Ritika hummed thoughtfully. “I guess I don’t know enough about law enforcement. Don’t care much about that junk living in the desert all my life,” she said, deferring to Soot.

The golem shrugged as well – he was too old to know how modern law and order worked.

“It’s probably fine.” Emily waved off the concern.

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

“What do you mean ‘no’?” asked Emily, struggling to keep herself even.

The police officer in the Lyreann VdV station took a moment to look over their cuticles before allowing Emily to invade their gaze.

“No,” repeated the officer. “The public doesn’t get access to resolved cases that aren’t going to trial,” they stated.

“My friend was attacked! What the terra do you mean there’s no trial?” Emily’s eyes glowed bright red as she felt herself losing to her strong stave.

Soot placed a hand on her shoulder, the weight pressing her down and keeping her from trying to jump the counter to swing on the police officer.

“I don’t know where your misconception of what the law is came from, Miss, but we can’t be just handing out information to the general public like that,” the office stated, similarly taking some effort to keep their voice even. “Now, unless you have a legitimate concern, please step to the side, you’re holding up the line.”

Emily snorted indignantly, deciding whether it’d be worth the deportation to swing. Ultimately, logic won out and she begrudgingly complied.

“Now what?” Albarich asked as the next person stepped up to voice their concern.

“Gimmie a sec,” Emily mumbled, looking into something on her tuner. After a moment she furrowed her brow in confusion. “What? But why?” she muttered, continuing to tap at the screen.

“What’s up, Emmy?” asked Ritika.

Deciding this wasn’t the best place to have the discussion, she motioned for her trio to follow along.

Returning to the MA Office, Emily addressed her trio.

“Okay, so Al and I came from Luna,” she began.

Ritika and Soot nodded, following along thus far.

“The way that should have gone down is all records are available to the public including video recordings of the attending Officers,” she explained. “If the officers on staff don’t fulfill the request, then you can petition to Seat Dì èr, Seat Ṣaṣṭha, or Seat Zwölftel of the Fourteen’s Court.”

Ritika’s hand shot up.

“Yes?” asked Emily.

“What’s that?” she asked.

“Oh right. So the Fourteen’s Court serves under the king and queen of Luna. They’re in the top percentage of their generation and are selected from birth for the role.”

“How does that work?” questioned the cat.

Emily took in a deep breath before she began.

“So on Luna, rather than popularity, we pick our leadership based on strength of rhythm. Since we cherish bonds between Maestros and Resonators, the King and Queen are always a Maestro and Resonator. As far as I understand, the Resonator is selected first, and the opposite gender of the Resonator is then selected from the candidates for Maestro. The same process is applied to the twenty-eight seats of their court.”

“After the King and Queen ascend to the throne, they are to rule for twenty-five years, starting when they hit age twenty. Five years after the current Court is in service, the selection for the next court begins. The children born in that fifth year are analyzed on their potential rhythm, with the top fifteen of each Maestro and Resonator being selected and brought to the palace to be raised and educated as royalty. Each rank is taught together and live together as a pair.”

The Maestro paused, giving her time to rest her vocal cords and allow for questions.

“So, it’s always the same families then?” asked Ritika skeptically.

“Stars no! Lots of different families have been royalty. That’s the pride of our system – the truly strong end up leading our country,” Emily boasted.

“And yet, there’s still plenty of corruption to go around,” Albarich scoffed.

Emily wilted almost instantly.

“What does he mean?” questioned Ritika, her gaze narrowing.

“Well… the church holds a lot of sway. I just didn’t think they were bad…” the princess mumbled, her voice as low as her gaze.

This tale has been unlawfully lifted from Royal Road. If you spot it on Amazon, please report it.

“Daddy and Mommy haven’t done shit about the churches trying to purge the non-lunars – they’re complicit,” Albarich growled.

Emily wore a complicated expression – frustration, shame, confusion; it was all there.

Ritika recalled the story they told her when they first met over a year ago. How they pissed off the church and got chased from Luna by accident as a result. Being unable to call back to Luna for help almost felt like it was by design.

“So now what?” asked the cat.

“We try to find information on our own. If the Riterran authorities aren’t giving us the info, then we ask people who were there,” said Emily.

Soot stepped up at this point in the conversation. He tapped his chest with a C-like shape, then balled up a fist and moved his hand over the other, and finally held up a single finger and made a circle.

“Police, hide, someone or something?” Emily guessed.

The golem nodded. He made a puzzled expression and scratched his head – a seemingly innocuous gesture, but Emily quickly realized that also was a sign.

“Suspect? Suspicious!” she realized after a moment.

Another confirmative nod from the golem put a new line of thought in the Maestro’s head: the whole situation with the police was awfully convenient – suspicious even.

“Let’s hit the streets.” Emily rose from the desk, her determination palpable.

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“Hm… this is tougher than I thought…” Emily furrowed her brow as her eyes flicked up and down the tuner screen. She and Ritika were sitting on a bench while Soot and Albarich stood behind.

“What’s that?” Albarich asked, taking a peek at the screen.

“There’s like nothing online talking about Colette getting attacked. You’d think there’d be something.” No matter how much she poured over the various news sites, both local and continental she couldn’t find what she was looking for.

“Weird,” Ritika commented, leaning on her Maestro’s shoulder. “Nothing at all?” she questioned.

“Not even people commenting on the local meet-up sites about it,” Emily hummed with frustration. “Ok, idea.” She flipped to Elijah’s number and called him.

“Miss Seijo, for what do I owe the pleasure?” he answered almost immediately.

“Send me Colette’s number,” demanded the princess.

There was a noticeable pause before the Klein heir spoke. “And what is it that you’re going to do with that information?”

“I want to talk to her about the night she was attacked.”

“By Vail?”

“Yes.”

Another considerate pause followed. “Alright, but before I allow you this privileged information, you have to tell me what you’ve found out,” came the bargain.

Since he was getting this information one way or another, the princess spilled the beans as it were. “We tried the police station and they wouldn’t give me any information, and we tried looking online and found not a trace of the attack,” she told him.

“Ah, it’s as I feared then,” Elijah said almost immediately.

“What?” Emily raised a brow.

“Someone is censoring the information. That’s why Vail attacked so brazenly – they knew she wouldn’t be caught.”

Emily felt her heart stop for a moment. She knew there was something wrong with this whole situation. Shouri was right…

Shouri!

Emily rapidly threw a search out and found the same brick wall known as nothing.

-The truck being attacked and flipped over was downplayed as protesters.

-The attack on Kalanichi stadium was attributed to some rowdy sports fans.

-Shouri’s battle with Whistler in Alspo was cited as demolition work.

Whistler and Vail were entirely absent from the news cycle, any event that involved them either didn’t exist or was altered.

Emily’s trio of Resonators had watched their Maestro’s frantic web searches with growing concern, sharing in her realization.

These people could (and probably have) get away with murder – in the most literal sense.

“Guess we get to work on that detection spell like that guy was suggesting,” Albarich chuckled.

“Y-yeah, Rilevare l’intenzione, Rubato, please,” she requested.

“Now what?” Ritika asked, eyeing every person who walked by their quaint little bench.

“Gonna call Colette, and then we’re going to check out that park,” Emily said.

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

“It’s like it never happened,” Emily breathed out.

Colette was verbose in her description of where and when the attack took place. There wasn’t any way they had mixed it up. Even so, the park was pristine. No signs of a struggle.

“Emmy, Nature elements have a spell to fix plants and grow them fast,” Ritika advised. “Combine that with our spell to fix damaged ground, they could have a battlefield repaired in a couple hours if they have enough people,” she advised her Maestro.

“But governments never move this fast, it’s always so slow and filled with bureaucracy,” mumbled the Maestro, taking in the pristine glow of nature in abject horror.

“Maybe terrans are just that efficient,” Albarich guessed.

Soot shook his head and threw up the sign for “greed”, which was like he was grabbing at his jaw.

“I just don’t get it, how is he able to do all this?” whispered Emily.

“Money probably,” Albarich guessed.

The Princess nodded slowly. “We did float the possibility in chat, but I dunno, it just feels like too much,” she frowned. “How can we even bring him in if he’s like paying people off?”

“Dunno, but I’m sure Shouri and moneybags will figure it out,” the dragon laid a hand on her shoulder.

“Right. I guess we should stay on the move then, at least until Shouri says he’s ready to move,” Emily decided.

“Sounds good to me!” Ritika beamed.

It was at that moment Emily’s tuners began ringing. Upon seeing who graced her caller ID, she eagerly answered.

“Hey Shouri!”

“Coming back tomorrow?”

“We’ll meet you there!”

The princess looked to her trio.

“Sounds like we’re gonna be sleeping on a train,” Albarich guessed.

“How long’s it even been?” wondered Ritika. “Either way, can’t wait to see how they’ve grown!”

Soot signed his approval without the Maestro asking.

“Let’s get going!” Emily pumped her fist into the sky.