There were only a few weeks left in the school year. The students were still in the Medical Ward for most of each day. They couldn't participate in any classes. With their cores empty, they had no Imperial to control. Parker had never seen anyone look as depressed as the students who had been robbed of their very being.

Hailee was still on edge trying to find out what it was that Master Sora knew about her father. Did he just know who he was? Or did he know what had happened to him? Caleb had done everything he could to keep her calm when she saw him but he couldn't blame her for feeling that way. Every time he stopped her he reminded her that he didn't disagree with her feelings toward the master.

Other than that, days went by in their normal fashion. From an outsider's point of view, nothing would look abnormal. Students went from class to class, ate lunch together, talked and gossiped as they moved around in their packs of friends.

On a Saturday morning before breakfast, Parker had gone down before anyone else in his room had woken up. He sat at their usual table in The Regale by himself just thinking about everything that was happening when a hand grabbed his shoulder.

"Parker, what are you doing down here this early? The sun isn't even up yet." Master Sora stood tall over him, looking even grander from Parker's sitting position.

"I just wanted to think about some stuff and I figured no one would be in here at this hour." The master sat down a couple seats away looking at him. "Why are you down here so early Master?"

"The masters take turns doing shifts in the school to keep an eye on things. Tonight, was my shift so I was finishing up my last round before I get ready for the day." Parker felt bad that he'd been up all night and now had to deal with Parker being out of the dorm well before he was supposed to be.

"I'm not in trouble for being down here so early, am I?" He was afraid that his master was going to be upset with him.

"I won't say 'in trouble' but I must impress upon you the danger of moving around the castle by yourself, especially when almost no one else is awake. What if Lara had appeared before you? Or what if there was another Colton just waiting for you?"

"In all fairness Master, Lara appears to me even when there's everyone in the corridors. Nothing stops her, I mean she can freeze time." Master Sora shrugged with a frown on his face.

"I suppose you're right."

"Why can't you tell us what's going on?"

"I've told you before, we won't put children in danger on purpose. Ever."

"I get that but how does keeping us in the loop put us in danger?" Parker knew the answer to his question but wanted to see what the master would say.

"Have you met yourself? Any little bit of information and there you go, diving in headfirst without giving it a second thought. Heck, sometimes you don't even need information, you just go and dive in." Parker wasn't quite ready for that answer. He thought the master might sugarcoat it a little since he was only fourteen years old.

"Can't you at least tell us about Hailee's father? Or is that going to put us in danger too?" He asked it sarcastically but started to think about it a little harder as the master paused before answering.

"I just think that it's not my place to tell Hailee who her father is since I am neither her mother nor her father."

"But can't you see how much it's bothering her? She can barely focus on anything else. I can't even imagine what her grades are looking like. I know mine are pretty ugly right now because I can't stop thinking about Lara and all of the attacks." He could see the look on Master Sora's face saying that he hadn't thought about how much they must be focused on everything that had happened. Being singled out by someone that was willing to kill millions.

"If I tell you anything, it stays between us." Parker nodded, shocked that the master was going to say anything. "As you know, the core from each of the students was taken. That means that their core was emptied."

"That's what Master Studwick told us when we talked to her. She mentioned that it could be refilled, how?"

"A medic is trained to touch the core and know the condition it is in. The older you get, the weaker your core becomes."

Parker blurted without thinking. "Then why is Master Studwick still so strong?"

"She's very unique I must say. She's the only Imperial I've ever met who has stayed as strong even into her old age."

"Was she like crazy strong when she was younger?"

"I'm not sure about when she was your age but when I met her, yes, she was incredibly gifted."

Parker didn't respond or say anything. He sat thinking about what Lara had said to him about being an Imp and how it makes you incredibly strong. "How does the core get refilled?"

"Well, that's the tough thing. There hasn't been much experimentation with it since it's not safe to remove someone's core. We do know that they have to find the Imperial's cores and use them to refill their empty cores.”

Parker gasped. "You mean, it can't just be refilled? We have to find their cores? So, there's not like a place that you could go and find what goes into someone's core?" The master nodded his head. "How do we find their cores?"

"Your guess is as good as mine." Parker gulped. He thought he might have been better off not knowing any more than they already did. "I'm thinking if we find Lara then we'll find the cores."

"What does she want with the cores?"

The master shook his head as he spoke. "I'm not quite sure but I'm guessing it goes along with her plans from last year of increasing her powers to create her alternate universe." Parker nodded his head agreeing with the master. "Now, that's all you need right now. Go get a little more rest before the day begins. You still have a lot of training to do even though you're improving so quickly."

-----

Caleb shook Parker awake. "Come on, get up!" He shook a little harder as Parker groggily sat up.

"What?" Parker groaned.

"We're going to be late if you don't get moving." And before Caleb could say anything else, Parker was standing in front of him dressed and ready to go for the day. "I hate you. You know that right? I really hate you sometimes." Parker grinned as they started to make their way to the common room.

No one was in sight when they entered so they made their way down to the corridor which was also empty. "Where is everyone?" Parker asked.

"On time, that's where." Caleb retorted. Parker grabbed Caleb's shoulder and used his Space Imperial to speed things up a little. They reappeared next to the wall by the dining hall. Everyone had learned to stay clear of the spot they always reappeared in.

When they sat down at their table Alexis scolded them for running so far behind. "I know we're late but there's a good reason for it." Caleb looked at Parker confused. He knew that Parker had simply overslept that morning, which wasn't something that surprised anyone but then Parker started to fill them in on everything from his early morning in the dining hall.

"You're serious?" Parker nodded. "I can't believe he told you all of that," Alexis said.

"I mean, we did already know a lot of that…" Caleb pointed out.

"I know but still. It means a lot that he told Parker about it all." Alexis stated.

Caleb shrugged and said, "Yeah, I guess you have a good point there."

"I still need to know what he knows about my father," Hailee said quietly. Alexis rubbed her shoulder as if to say they would do whatever they could to help her find out about her father.

The morning came and went and before they knew it they were finishing their lunch as well. They met at the room in the depths of the cave and waited for Master Studwick to arrive.

Sitting in the dark for several minutes before Parker pointed out that he could feel someone coming. Master Studwick had mentioned that after a while of being around the same people you start to learn their patterns and can tell who is coming near you by using the ground to tell you. Parker had no idea who was coming but Caleb quickly said, "Finally she's here."

The master appeared through the wall and walked up to them. "Sorry for the delay. Master Terra needed some help with something up at the castle."

"That's okay. So what's on the schedule for today?" Alexis asked.

"Well, today we're going to move boulders. Sounds hard but I'll give you some tips to start and then we'll go from there." Master Studwick created some boulders larger than them in the middle of the room. "Try to move the boulder."

Parker did everything he could think of and nothing happened. Hailee's attempt ended in the same manner. Alexis struggled for a few minutes but then got a good idea. Instead of trying to move the boulder itself, she moved the ground beneath the boulder to move it.

"Perfect Alexis!" Master Studwick was clapping excitedly. "That is what I was going to have you do!" Parker stepped up again and gave the new tactic a try and was able to move it a few feet before exhausting himself. Hailee moved it a little less but was still able to move it.

"Caleb, why aren't you trying it?" Parker asked.

"I'm not feeling so hot to be honest. Haven't felt well for a few days now."

"Why didn't you say anything?" Hailee asked worriedly.

"I'll be fine. Just a small bug, I'm sure.

"I'm glad you aren't pushing yourself then," Master Studwick said in a very motherly tone.

The master let them go early for their good work. When they got back to the castle, they finished out their day just as they would any other day. Parker found it increasingly difficult to not try and find Lara so that he could recover the missing cores. Maybe Master Sora had been right that he was better off in the dark about all of it.

The next few days felt off. Caleb was in bed sick, Madame Sasaki told him he just needed to rest and the bug he had would simply pass in time. The more he tried to do normal activities the longer it would take to recover.

He knew that he needed to rest but he couldn't keep himself from sneaking to the roof and practicing some when no one was looking. Parker caught him up there several times and always tried to convince him to go back to bed. Not so that he could recover faster but so Hailee wouldn't find out and kill him.

Parker, Alexis and Hailee took their seats at lunch next to Ana and Cassidy. The couldn't believe that Cassidy was with them. "Madame Sasaki released you?" Alexis asked hopefully.

"Sadly, no…" Cassidy said shaking her head. "She just let me out to grab some lunch and walk around."

"How are you doing?" Hailee asked.

Cassidy's head dropped slightly. "I mean… okay I guess…" Hailee felt guilty immediately for asking. She knew she wouldn't be doing well if her Imperial had been stolen from her. "I'm just dying not being able to really do anything but lay around all day."

"Yeah, that would be really hard," Parker said.

"Are you two getting back to Aether yet?" Cassidy asked looking at Parker and Alexis.

"Not yet," Alexis said. "But I talked to Evelyn and we're going to go to a practice in a few more weeks." Parker looked at her clearly surprised by her response.

"We are?" he asked her.

"Yeah, I told her we would. I figured it would be safe to say that you would be there too." She was right and he knew it but he wasn't sure how he felt about her answering for him when he wasn't there.

"Okay. It should definitely be interesting. I'd love to get back into Aether again. I miss it so much." He saw Cassidy's head drop again. "I'm sorry… I didn't mean to say it like that…" He knew how she felt at that moment. Realizing that you wouldn't be able to do something you absolutely love again, possibly forever.

They spent the rest of lunch catching Cassidy up on some of the stuff she missed from when she was unconscious to some of the lesser things they felt they could tell her about. It made Parker wonder if the other students his age had that pressure in their lives. The knowledge of certain things they had to keep secret from everyone in order to help protect them. The stress of it was starting to really weigh on his shoulders. He couldn't be more grateful to have his friends with him baring part of the weight alongside him.

The three of them made their way to the cave for their Omni class. Master Studwick had them working together to move an extremely large boulder that blocked their way out. After what felt like hours of failing to move the boulder Parker stopped trying.

"This is useless." He lay out on the floor like a starfish and groaned.

"If you're wanting to make it to your next class on time you better figure out how to move it."

"You wouldn't let us be late to our next class," Hailee said. The look on Master Studwick's face said otherwise though. "Well, moving it obviously won't work. It's just too large and we aren't strong enough yet."

"Perfect," Alexis said.

"What's perfect?" Hailee asked.

"Let's just make it smaller." Hailee slapped her forehead. "It's a simple solution. We just break up the boulder and move the smaller pieces out of the way.

They got to work and slowly started to shave off chunks of the boulder. Cut by cut, the boulder starts to slim down. They took shifts cutting rock and moving rock while one rested. Then they would rotate. After thirty minutes the boulder was finally completely moved. Master Studwick pointed out that they would obviously just have to cut away enough to get through but for the sake of the exercise they had to completely get rid of the boulder.

Leaving the cave to get to their next class, Master Studwick walked and talked with them. They loved having her around. She was spunky and sarcastic and tons of fun to talk with.

When they reached the cave entrance, they saw fire and black smoke billowing out of the top of the castle into the brilliant blue sky. Standing in front of the castle they could see a group of people standing and staring at the top of the castle.

They rushed to the group and to get a better look at what happened. If it wasn't for the pained silence of everyone, you wouldn't know anything was out of the ordinary. Parker could hear others start whispering in hushed voices. No one seemed to know what happened. He saw Master Sora standing with the other masters. When he approached the group, Master Kingston headed back into the castle with a group of what looked like sixth year students from her house.

"What happened?" Parker asked Master Sora.

"We're not sure yet," the master responded.

"I can't tell where the smoke is coming from," Alexis said. "There's too much of it.

"All we know is that somehow The House of Erion has caved in and caused a bunch of fires to erupt."

"Caleb's in there…" Hailee said breathlessly. Alexis grabbed Parker by the arm and buried her face into his shoulder.

End of Book 2 Dealing with Water. Thank you so much for reading. Book 3 will begin posting chapters Friday, December 3rd at 8:15 p.m. EST