It was the middle of the day. The sun was high at its peak and sky was a bright blue. The winds were calm, but they blew just enough for the air to not feel stagnant. It carried a light ocean scent with it that was comforting and warm. To Vincent, it was exactly what he needed in order to focus.

“Damn,” Vincent said, dropping his concentration, “this shit is tough.”

“Focus, Vincent,” Siegella said. She then walked around him, slowly. “You have the right idea, but you’re trying too much and you lose yourself too quick.”

They were both training in the back grove of the Libra HQ. It was a concrete patio that was surrounded by brick walls, which had ivy growing up them at all sides. Beyond those walls were the backs of the tall buildings that kept this space hidden from the rest of the city.

Vincent let out a long and exhaustive sigh. “Yeah, yeah, I know. I’m just not really gettin’ it, ya know?”

Siegella paused for a moment. “Alright,” she said. “Let’s start with the basics then.”

“Finally, something simple,” Vincent said, flopping himself to the floor. He then propped one knee up and sat there.

“Resonance is a universal concept and one that has long existed before we could sense it. It’s something that is truth and truth alone.”

“Oh no, this is even worse,” Vincent said in despair.

Completely ignoring his comment, Siegella continued on. “Everything in the universe resonates at its own frequency. That includes physical elements, fundamental laws, and even universal concepts. If someone’s natural resonance is the same as something in the universe, then they can essentially “become one” with it and control it. That’s the basic concept of what a Resonator is.”

“Uh huh…”

She then pulled a golden ring off of her singer. “For example, this ring,” she said holding it up, “is made of pure gold. If you look at it hard enough and focus solely on it, then you can see the faint waves that emanate from it.”

Vincent squinted his eyes and really strained his vision. As he did, his head began to throb. It took him a moment, but he did manage to pick out the small waves that were coming off of the ring. It was a bit difficult, seeing as the world was full of powerful waves that were bouncing and moving all over. Humans, especially, produced strong ones.

“So,” she continued, “I can see you’re having a bit of trouble with this.”

“No, not at all,” Vincent sarcastically replied.

Siegella rolled her eyes. “Have you heard of the phrase: “We’re on the same wavelength?”

“Yeah, of course.”

“Well, let’s just say that it turns out that it’s a little more literal than you thought. If you are “on the same wavelength” as something in the universe, then you can essentially control it.”

“Ohhhh, I got it now…kinda.

“That’s progress, I guess,” Siegella said, rolling the ring around in her hands. “However, it’s not quite that simple. Your own mental waves are directly determined by who you are, meaning it’s hard for you to naturally align with something in the universe.”

“But if I just change my mental waves, can’t I just match with anything in the world?” Vincent asked. “Seems easy to me.”

“Can you change who you are, fundamentally?”

Vincent hesitated. “Well…”

“Exactly.That’s why so few people are Resonators. And besides, even if you match, only those with the strongest wills can exert enough mental waves to be a Resonator.”

Vincent then stood up, now with a bit of his strength recovered. He wiped some of the sweat from his forehead and took a drink of water. “I think I’m kinda getting it, but it seems like you’re only talkin’ about Dominators. What about those people that summon the giant monsters, like the Terragong? I think they’re called Apparators.”

“Ah,” Siegella said, “good question. Apparators are people who seem to be so in their own head—who resonate with a certain portion of themselves from deep within. Their mental waves physically manifest into something that represents them. It generally consists of either a powerful memory, a fundamental emotion, or both. At least that’s what it seems like from personal experience.”

“Huh,” Vincent said, genuinely interested now. “That makes some things make sense now.” He then rubbed his chin for a second. “So how long have these powers actually existed? Has it been something that’s always been there and for some reason it’s just now coming out of hiding? Like bigfoot!”

“Uhhhh…” Siegella said, not exactly sure how to respond to Vincent’s words. “Not exactly, but you’re weirdly close.” She then rested her back against one of the brick walls. “I’m not sure how long these waves have existed, but I know that humans have only just started being able to perceive them. Resonators were suddenly born at the same time that people started being able to tap into this power…which was at the exact same time that the obelisks appeared.”

A chill was sent down Vincent’s neck.

“It’s almost as if,” she continued to say, “these obelisks signaled a new era for human evolution.” She then shook her head. “Anyways, that’s not what we’re here to do. I’m here to train you on something more fundamental than Resonators. I’m here to teach you how to control mental waves—which we call “resonating.”

“Alright, let’s learn some more superpower stuff!” Vincent exclaimed.

Siegella, again, rolled her eyes. “Well first, let’s start with names. There are three basic principles of resonating: prediction, projection, and protection. We’ll go through them in order.” She then flicked her ring at Vincent..

“What are you doing?” Vincent asked, catching the ring

“Playing a game” Siegella said, matter-of-factly. “Now, place the ring in one of your hands and I’ll guess which one.

“What does this—”

“Do it,” she firmly repeated.

“Ummm ok.”

He balled his hands up and put them behind his back. Then, after thinking about it for a second, he placed it in his right hand. Afterwards, he presented both of them out towards Siegella.

“Right,” Siegella said with absolute confidence.

Vincent slightly frowned. “Good guess,” he said.

Again, he secretly placed the ring in one of his hands and presented them to Siegella. “Which hand is—”

“Left,” she promptly answered.

A bit more annoyed, Vincent said, “Wow, great job.”

They continued this game for ten minutes, and Vincent never once won. Every single time he asked the question, Siegella would know which hand the ring was in. Towards the end of the game, he grew to be genuinely irritated.

“What the fuck!?” he yelled. “This game is bullshit! What is this?”

“Prediction,” Siegella answered.

“Prediction?”

“Yes,” she said, taking the ring from Vincent. “You see, I already knew what you were going to pick before you even asked me to guess. You’re an open book. You don’t protect your thoughts at all. Before you could even ask me, I knew the answer.”

“So you’re cheating?” Vincent said in a half-vindicated manner. “You can read thoughts?”

“Not quite,” Siegella responded. “I’m reading your intentions, not your direct thoughts. Although, I suppose if you are a master at prediction, you could theoretically dive into someone’s own mind. But that would require more than just prediction.” She then shook her head. “Anyways, what I was just demonstrating was prediction.”

“Same thing,” Vincent stubbornly said. “But how did you use that to know what I was gonna pick?”

“Whenever you brought your hands behind your back, your mental waves slightly shifted to whatever side you were thinking about placing the ring in. Not only that, but I could tell that your emotions were getting more irritated as the game went on. Not that I needed to read your waved to know that,” she teased.

“So how do I do this?” Vincent asked.

“Well, you just have to know how to read the waves that are emanating from peoples’ minds,” she answered. “Those who tend to be good with emotions excel in this category, from my experience. But before we go onto the training, let’s move to the next principle of resonance.”

Vincent paused for a second and tried to recall the other two words that Siegella was going to teach him. “Procrastination, right?”

“No, Vincent…” Siegella sighed. “The next one is projection.”

“Ohhhhhhh, gotcha.”

“Now, this is something that I saw you do when you first resonated during our fight with Iro.” She then backed up a couple of feet. “Does this feel familiar to you?”

Almost instantly, Vincent felt a throbbing sensation in his head. It felt like a jackhammer was rapidly pounding the inside of his skull. He got disoriented and began losing his sense of balance. There was a moment where he even thought about vomiting. He tried to focus on something else in order to stabilize his spinning world, but his thoughts were all out of whack. It was almost like he wasn’t in control of his own mind.

“Wha—” Vincent tried to say, but a bit of spittle came up.

Siegella started to strut over towards him. “This is projection.”

“Well this sucks,” Vincent snapped back before falling to his knees.

Siegella then gently grabbed his head and made him look her in the eyes. “Projection is the ability to enforce your will onto others. By pushing your mental waves outwards towards someone else, you can cause them to become disoriented and confused. Your waves clash against theirs within their own mind. If you're strong enough, you can even force your thoughts into their heads.”

The nauseating pain stopped within a second and Vincent nearly collapsed to the floor. The whiplash was immense and he had to take deep breaths to reorient himself. When his thoughts finally became his own, there were snippets of remembrance that flashed before him. The first memory that came to him was all the way back at the start of his journey. On the boat ride to Egypt, he felt something very similar hit his head when Yoshin engaged those pirates. Then his thoughts jumped to his experience with Cowol, the fortune teller in Egypt. From there, he thought about how he felt when fighting Iro. There were many connections that started to form in his mind.

“I think I’m starting to get this,” Vincent said, standing up. He then wiped his mouth and cracked his neck.

“Good,” Siegella said.

“Now,” Vincent said, “how do I fight against an attack like that? Do I just launch my own back at ‘em? I think that’s what I did against Iro.”

“You could,” Siegella said, pacing around, “or you could learn the final basic principle.”

“Which is?”

“Protection.” She stopped and pointed at her head. “By using a fraction of the mental energy that projection takes, you can insulate your mind with your own mental waves. This forms a barrier of thoughts, so to speak, that can shield your precious head from intruding waves.”

Vincent cracked a smile. “So how do I learn to do this?”

“The same as everything else,” Siegella answered. “Let’s start with the training.”

***

The sun was beginning to set on another productive day. Archard was standing next to the giant windows that surrounded the back of his desk. The view overlooked most of the west side, and it barely peered into the east. He was drinking a cup of warm, lemon tea, staring out at the distance in silence.

He took another sip and exhaled. “Delicious,” he said.

Then, he turned towards his desk and set the cup down. He opened the bottom drawer on his left and pulled out a small, white notebook. He stared at the blank cover for a moment, and a smile crept across his face.

“I wonder what’s in store for tomorrow?” he asked himself.

He turned back to face his windows and opened the notebook. He flipped through a few pages before landing on the one he was looking for. The man read through that page for a few minutes before laughing to himself.

“Oh,” he said with a maniacal grin, “that’s very interesting.”