Parker rolled off the side of his bed crashing to the floor. The sun beamed in through his window putting a spotlight on his unconscious blunder. "Man, I actually made it through my Imperial class without an accident but I can't even make it through the night. I can't wait until I'm back to normal."

"Back to normal? Since when were you normal?" Oliver asked. Parker was shocked that Oliver was talking to him. Outside of their small group presentation, he hadn't said a word to him ever since the accident with Alexis.

"I suppose that's fair. However, I'd really like to get back to my normal."

Oliver shrugged and laughed. "Hey, I wanted to apologize. I haven't been overly nice towards you since… it happened."

"You haven't been mean to me…" Parker was a little confused since Oliver had barely said a word to him in the past few weeks.

"Well I've been giving you the cold shoulder, which isn't exactly nice is it? Can you explain what's happening?"

"I don't really know what's happening. If I could tell you anything more than I know right now I would, but you know just as much as I do. Somehow the other Imperials keep coming from me."

Oliver nodded his head with a look of sympathy in his eyes. "Is there anything I could do to help?"

"Well… actually… why did your mood change all of a sudden towards me? Nothing's changed as of now."

"I saw firsthand that what happened is actually an accident. A lot of people that I know of aren't talking to you because they think you attacked her on purpose."

"What?" Parker yelled. "I would never attack Alexis! Why would anyone think that?"

"That's just a rumor that got started somehow and then everyone started to believe it. I'm trying to pass around the word that it's really just all accidents. Only a few have believed me so far." Parker could see that Oliver did actually feel bad for the way he'd treated him.

"Why do you believe me? I could've frozen Eliott on purpose. How would you know any different?"

"I could see it in your eyes Parker. You were terrified when the sphere of water froze over." Parker agreed with him, he had been absolutely terrified. Especially considering that his Water Imperial had never shown itself before that moment.

"Well, thank you. I really appreciate you coming to me. It's been really bothering me that no one talks to me anymore. I only have Caleb and Hailee to talk to for the most part." Oliver saw Parker's gaze drop to the floor as he said.

"What about Alexis? You two were so close last year." Parker's head dropped at the sound of her name. "Did something happen between you two?"

Parker nodded his head and then walked out of his room to the common room. Caleb walked up to him with wide eyes. "Parker! What are you doing? You're not dressed yet and we have to get down to breakfast or we're going to be late to our class."

"Go ahead and go down to breakfast I'll meet you there." Parker turned around and went back to his room to get ready. He did not want to face his class again after what had happened the previous day.

He took his time getting ready and slowly made his way out. When he jumped through the entrance and landed on the twenty-first floor there was no one in the corridor to his left. He turned around to head to the staircase and Alexis was standing there.

"It's time we talked."

"You want to talk here not somewhere a little more private?" He thought that she'd want a little more privacy even though there was no one else in the corridor.

"This is as private as it gets Parker."

He had no idea what she was talking about; they were standing in an open corridor. Parker tried to figure out how this could be as private as it gets, then he noticed a gray tint to the corridor. "Have you been practicing your Space Imperial?"

Alexis smiled and nodded slightly. "It hasn't been easy but yes I have and I'm doing pretty well at it. I have to tell you though, it's exhausting."

"I bet!" he said.

"Well, what I wanted to talk to you about saying sorry." Parker could see the sadness in her eyes.

"What are you sorry for? I'm the one who hurt you. I totally understand that you were mad at me. You had every reason to be mad."

"I did but I didn't. Hailee told me about the conversation you two had and then what happened when you got mad." Parker felt terrible all over again even though Hailee wasn't mad about what had happened. "After seeing your face in class yesterday I know that what happened was an accident. Hailee told me how you didn't see anyone in the room with you and after practicing so much I've began to notice how when I've moved spaces there's a gray tint to the new space. See how it looks grayer right now than it normally does?"

Parker nodded his head. "Yeah, I actually knew that already. When Lara had me, we were looking down on the dining hall watching our funerals. It had a gray tint to it then but I haven't seen it since then." She looked at him shocked that he knew.

"I didn't see a gray tint when I was in the room with you so I thought that you were staring straight at me when you threw the fireball. And I never even gave you the time of day to explain what happened from your perspective. So, I wanted to say that I'm really sorry. Are we going to be okay?" Parker could see the look on her face. She was sorry and felt terrible for the way she'd treated him. "I understand that it might take a while…"

Parker cut her sentence off, "We'll be fine. We should get going though before someone notices that just the two of us are missing."

"That's the great thing about this space, time moves completely different here. We've only been here for about thirty seconds."

His jaw dropped. "What do you mean? We've been talking for like five or ten minutes."

"Like I said, time moves differently so let's get moving." Alexis clapped her hands together and the gray disappeared. They'd returned to the corridor and began making their way to the dining hall.

They caught Caleb's waving hand and made their way to him. "You two need to eat quickly or we're going to be late to Combining the Imperials." Parker noticed that he completely ignored the fact that they'd arrived together and civil.

They sprinted down the corridor and into the classroom. Taking their seats together, Master Kingston eyeballed them from the front of the room. "To begin today, we are going to vote on which presentation from yesterday was the best." She'd written one of the group members' names from each group on the board. Working through each one all of the students voted, with the rule that they had to vote for someone else's.

After all of the votes were in, Parker and Alexis's group had tied with eight votes each. "Well, I must say I am rather surprised. I guess we're going to have to have a tiebreaker aren't we? You'll each have five minutes to prepare something. That will prove which group can think quicker on their feet."

Parker's group was the first to go. He was feeling significantly better after a flawless Imperial class the day before. Eliott streamed water in from the lake once again while the three others formed it into a sphere. "This is old stuff now!" a voice shouted.

As soon as he'd said it, a ball of water shot across the room and hit him in the chest. His red robes were sopping wet and he had nothing else to say. Slowly, sphere after sphere of water broke from the large sphere and floated out to each other student in the room. "Whoa…" could be heard throughout the room.

Each small sphere of circulating water held a fish. Some of the students stuck their fingers into the sphere to poke the fish and found their fingers being nipped at. They could see the students pulling their fingers back from the spheres yelping at the same time.

"What kind of fish bite people?" someone said.

"Yeah… I probably would keep my fingers to myself if I were you," Master Kingston said. "The fish in this lake are not overly friendly towards Imperials from any of the houses outside of The House of Leith.

"What? Do you guys talk to fish in your house?" a kid in red robes blurted.

"Something like that…" the master said with a smirk on her face. Eliott waved his hands through the air and streamed the water back out through the window. The class clapped for them and they took a seat.

Alexis's group took their position at the front of the room. Two of the three House of Kenna students made their way into the desks of students. The other created a small flame in her hand. Alexis moved to it and fed air into the flame. It grew in size until it was about four feet in diameter. She took a step back and clapped her hands hard. The sound echoed around the room and the sphere of fire shot in half across the room. The other two students caught the flames and waved their hands out in front of them sending a haze of fire over the students' heads. Screams could be heard from all around the room.

A wind kicked up spinning the fire into a cyclone in the middle of the room. Alexis was waving her hands in a circular motion and then quickly dropped her hands to the floor. As she dropped to the floor, the cyclone crashed down sending fire across the floor in all directions. The class quickly lifted their feet to avoid being burned and the fire dissipated.

Alexis's group joined together at the front of the room again and took a small bow. The class cheered loudly for them and then hushed quickly by Master Kingston. "All right, all right, it's now time to vote. Everyone needs to put their heads down for this will be a blind vote. If you thought Eliott's group as the superior presentation please raise your hand." The master counted up the votes and wrote a five under their name on the board. "If you thought Alexis's group was the superior group, please raise your hand." The remaining seven hands went into the air as Master Kingston said, "Alexis's group is our winner! Congratulations!"

The rest of the class time was spent with discussion over what parts of their presentations stood out and how the Imperials had worked together in the moment. One student in green robes asked which presentation Master Kingston had enjoyed more. "Well, I'm looking at it from two different perspectives. From my opinionated perspective, I liked Eliott's group slightly more because of the Water Imperial and use of fish, I've always loved sea creatures. However, from a teaching perspective, I thought that Alexis's group surpassed them by a ways."

"What do you mean, ‘From a teaching perspective’?" Caleb asked.

"Well Caleb, your presentation did very well with using your Imperials side by side. However, Alexis's group actually used one Imperial and combined it with another." Parker thought about what she said and it made sense. Alexis used her Imperial in order to increase the size of the fire itself. They had only held parts of Eliott's Imperial and moved it around.

-----

The four of them were sitting at a table in the dining hall just as they used to. "I thought you two did a great job in your presentation," said Alexis.

"Don't forget about Oliver and Eliott. Heck without Eliott it wouldn't have even been possible." Parker was starting to like Eliott after having a few classes with him. He'd noticed that Eliott was also in his history class but couldn't sit by him. Parker wanted to try and get a seat next to him so he could get to know him a little more.

"Yeah, Eliott did a great job. Do you know him very well?" Hailee sat quietly as the other three discussed their class. She had a lot running through her head that no one else knew about. Ever since their run-in with Lara, something had felt off with her Imperial. She wasn't sure why she hadn't shared it with her friends but something gave her the feeling she should keep it to herself.

"Hailee…" Alexis poked her in the cheek snapping her out of her daze.

"What?"

"Everything okay? I asked how your classes were going besides helping in our Imperial class, but you just stared off into space."

"Oh. Yeah. They're going fine."

Alexis stared at her with a hint of concern in her eyes. "Good, I'm glad. Is everything else okay though? Something seems off."

"No, I'm fine. Really. There's nothing to worry about. But aren't you two supposed to be in class?" she said as she stared back and forth between Parker and Caleb.

Their eyes shot open, and they raced out of the dining hall. Parker made it to the middle of the staircase out of habit and jumped as hard as he could. A burst of air shot out from his feet sending him up one floor before it gave out. He spun and tried to create his swirl of wind to help raise him through the air. He could feel the air teetering out quickly so he guided himself to the stairs so he wouldn't fall three stories down.

Caleb landed next to him and patted him on the shoulder. "It's okay. You'll get it back soon enough. Don't let it get to you." He could see a look of defeat in Parker's eyes, but he could also see a hint of determination hiding behind them. Caleb could tell that Parker was not going to give up no matter what happened.

When they arrived at the classroom door, they opened it and went into the clearing. Alexis was standing there with Master Sora waiting for them, almost like she'd been there for several minutes.

"But… how…" Parker stammered.

"There's no way you could've possibly beaten us up here," Caleb said.

Alexis laughed a little and looked at Parker. "Remember what I said? Time moves differently." Caleb turned and stared at Parker to see if he understood what Alexis had just said and it was obvious that he had understood exactly what she was saying.

"Ready to begin? We're picking up right where we left off." Master Sora ushered for Caleb and Parker to face one another. Alexis took a step back to watch what they were going to be doing.

"Ready?" Caleb asked. Parker nodded and summoned a fireball in his hand the size of a golf ball. He shot it at Caleb and right before it made it to him Parker thrust his arm toward it. A stream of air surged forward and hit the fireball. It grew to the size of a melon and collided with Caleb's chest knocking him back a few steps.

"Where did that come from?" Master Sora asked. "I'll be honest, I've never seen that combination of Imperials by one person before. Granted we haven't had any Omnis since Lara's time here so I guess that makes sense."

"Well, I thought about our lesson in Combining the Imperials today. Alexis used her Air Imperial to increase Cesily's fireball so I tried something similar." Caleb spun in spot and shot a burst of air at Parker while he was focused on Master Sora. The air swept his feet out from under him and sent him spiraling through the air. He tried to rotate midair and regain his equilibrium to catch himself.

The air spun slightly around him slowing his descent but not enough to catch himself. He crashed into the ground and then looked at Caleb. "That was pretty dirty." Caleb had a grin on his face as he stared back at Parker.

"Well, maybe someone should pay a little more attention to the duel that he's in."

"Touché." Parker stood up and took his position across from Caleb. He sent three quick bursts of air at Caleb's head that were deflected but while he was distracted, Parker stomped hard on the ground thinking about how far he still had to go before he was back to normal. Nothing happened. Caleb returned the favor by doing the same motion and opening a whole in the ground under his feet.

Parker was in the floor all the way to his waist. Caleb started to walk toward him with a look of victory written all over his face. Parker wasn't going to let this stop him though, he through his fists at Caleb and two streams of air surged at Caleb's feet knocking him flat on his face. He lay still for several minutes before moving around. He wasn't ready for his feet to be swept out from under him.

"Parker that was very impressive. Something has definitely changed in you just from when I saw you here yesterday. May I ask what it is that's changed?" Master Sora asked.

"Well, my Imperial class yesterday helped a lot. I didn't make any slip ups around the other students." Master Sora looked at him with a hint of pride in his smile. He didn't know that Parker was only giving him half of the reason.