Grabbing the Aether Championship was exactly what Parker needed to bring his mood back to normal. It seemed like the celebrations went on for weeks afterward. Classmates from every house, except for Kenna, congratulated him, Alexis and Ana when they would run into them.

Parker loved every second of it. It helped distract him from all of the drama that was happening around him. Having something positive to pull from really made the difference.

Alexis was happier now too, since Parker’s mood had improved, he wasn’t irritating her with every little thing that he did. She had to wonder though, what was causing the mood swings in the first place. She’d met with the masters a few times in private to try and figure out what was wrong but none of them could think of something that Master Terra could’ve done to Parker to cause this.

——

True winter hit hard. Everyone stayed in the castle at all costs. If there was a fire, it was guaranteed to have at least five students near it. The cold bit into everyone like the snow clung to the ground.

Through the windows, Parker could gauge how bad the storms were by the increase in snow against them. It seemed like they would gain several inches every day. At one point, he was pretty sure that the castle was simply going to get buried.

Term three started and Parker found that he didn’t actually know what homework was until that point. Every class assigned heaps of it every day. He didn’t understand how Alexis and Caleb could stay on top of it all. It took everything he had to not use it as fire kindling.

Hailee promised him that it would get easier. “You learn to adjust to it. Eventually, you’ll think back and realize how nice this actually is.”

Parker stared at her, mouth gaping slightly, “It gets worse?”

She laughed a little and nodded. “I mean, yes but no. It’s the same every year. It gets harder, but you adapt. Isn’t that what the real world is like to?”

He thought about it for a moment and realized that she was absolutely right. Everything that had challenged them on their mission made them adapt in the moment.

A few days every now and then, the masters would make the students go outside for classes. The House of Kenna was okay with it because it was easy for them to heat up. No one else felt that way though. The snow grew ever higher and the cold seemed to start biting even harder.

It didn’t seem to matter how much they bundled up, the cold would seep in and take over. Parker couldn’t keep his Imperials straight when he was shivering as hard as he was. His water seemed to freeze on the spot. Alexis didn’t seem to be having any trouble at all keeping it in water form but she couldn’t make a fire so Parker felt they were even.

“All right,” Master Kingston shouted out to her students. The wind howled by, making the snow swirl up and dance through the bitter air. “I have an example you all need to see.” She walked toward Parker and Alexis as everyone followed her and circled around them.

Parker looked around, trying to figure out why they were the example she wanted to show everyone. “What does she want to show them?” he whispered to Alexis. He loathed like the feeling of being surrounded, especially by his peers in class.

“I’m not sure—”

“All right,” Master Kingston began as everyone stood around them. “These two, would be in some serious trouble—” Parker’s heart raced and he started to sweat. “—if they were out on their own. Each one of them is having trouble with one of their Imperials.”

Parker released his breath, relieved that he wasn’t in actual trouble. He heard Alexis do the same thing. They looked around at all of the faces staring at them, not sure what was going through their heads.

“So what if they’re having trouble, they can control time!” Several of the students snickered.

“Come here dear,” the master said gesturing to the one who spoke out. Through the crowd, Vaughnnn Richards stepped forward. Parker’s eyes widened a little, shocked that it was him. He hadn’t talked to him since their duel. “So, you think that because they can control time, that they shouldn’t have to worry?”

Vaughnnn pursed his lips and nodded his head. “Yeah… pretty much.”

“Well, you tell me then,” she gave him a disapproving look. “What would Parker do if he was confronted with a fire spirit??”

“Freeze time and knock it out.”

“If he can’t keep his water water, explain to me how he’s going to stop time.”

Parker raised his hand. “Um… if I can point something out. I’ve only frozen time once, and it was on accident. Alexis is the one who can freeze time,” Parker tattled. Alexis shot daggers at him with her eyes.

“Even better,” Master Kingston said. “So Vaughnnn, what is Parker going to do now? He can’t even freeze time. “ She said it in a way that made Parker feel tiny. Like, what’s he going to now? He can’t even freeze time!

Parker looked around again, all eyes trained on him now. Even Alexis was looking at him. He spun back and forth, heart racing. The beating reached his ears and he began feeling dizzy.

Alexis reached her hand out to stop him and try to calm him down but before she could touch him, he yelled out and burst of wind knocked everyone back. Everyone stared at him as he heaved, trying to take deep breath after deep breath.

“What was that?” Vaughnn shouted out.

“Parker are you all right?” the master asked in a concerned voice.

Parker continued heaving but slightly nodded his head. After a moment of awkward silence, he was able to stand straight up. When he looked around, the rest of the room was just staring at him. “I’m sorry…” he mumbled. No one said anything back.

“Well, let’s move on,” the master said, gesturing for the class to follow her. They approached the woods by the lake. As they got closer, Master Kingston began talking at the top of her lungs. “When you’re put out into the real world and have to go to less populated areas, such as the mountains below us, you will run into various things most of the world doesn’t know even exists.”

“What do you mean?” a student asked.

“For example, at the base of this mountain is at least one Petra Ingen.”

“A what?” another student shouted out over the wind.

“A giant rock monster,” Master Kingston said very matter-of-factly.

Several of the students began laughing after she said it. As if what she said couldn’t possibly be true. They stopped walking at the edge of the woods.

“You’ve got to be kidding,” Vaughnn said. “There’s no way we wouldn’t have heard of something like that before we came here. Someone would’ve been bound to see something with the way the internet is now.”

Master Kingston started to laugh. “These are creatures that do everything in their power to stay hidden from the rest of the world. Some of the creatures you’ve heard of through myths and legends. For example, bigfoot, the Lochness monster, pegasus, and chimera. These are all things that people have believed to be real but never been able to prove of their existence due to how well they stay hidden in secluded areas.”

“So you’re trying to tell us that they’re all real?” Vaughnn couldn’t believe what she was saying.

“Well, not all of them, but a fair few. And one of the jobs that Imperials take on after learning how to master their skills is to aide in the protection and control of these creatures. Many people choose to simply have families and live normal lives, however, many choose this career path. These are the times that we need to begin training for, which is why we are here.”

A bunch of the students began talking amongst themselves at this point which surprised Parker. Everything the master was saying actually seemed interesting. He’d never really heard of a career path for Imperials.

“Somewhere in the woods is a small animal called a Tilik. The first group to retrieve the animal will be the winner and will receive a reward.”

“What’s the reward?” several students shouted simultaneously.

The master thought for a moment. “I’d say a week off of homework is a worthy reward, wouldn’t you?” More muttering broke out amongst the class as she described the reward.

“This isn’t a fair contest though!” Vaughnn shouted yet again. “Those three have a distinct advantage. They can freeze time!”

Parker started to feel defensive. Was this how it was always going to be in classes now that they were being run through scenarios. Would it simply always be unfair for them to participate? He understood that they had an advantage being Omnis, but how was it fair to exclude them just because of it?

“How about this,” the master began, ready to compromise. “If any group is able to beat them, they will have no homework for a month?”

Parker thought the murmuring was impressive with the first mention of the reward but that was nothing compared to the second. He could see the look in the eyes of various students that were staring him down.

“Deal!” Vaughnn shouted. He started to walk up to Parker. It looked like he was going to get in his face and start smack-talking but before he could get a word out, Parker vanished.

——

Parker landed in a snow mound that was as deep as he was tall. He superheated his body and the snow around evaporated, hastily causing steam to rise through the air. He looked around at his surroundings and saw things that he’d seen only once before that looked similar.

He was on a mountain, not as big as the one Lancastre was on but still enough to be a mountain. Below there was a small town that sat next to a large body of water that had a lot of smaller islands in it. Parker felt like he was on an island as well due to the large boats that were parked at the docks. On a tree next to him, there was a lone Puffin sitting on a branch.

Parker looked closely at the bird and noticed that it looked very young, like it had been born just before the winter hit hard. “What are you doing here?” he asked the little bird. It looked back at him with its multi-colored beak but didn’t make any noise. Another bird flew in and landed right next to the Puffin. This bird was very small, but had an extremely long and elaborate tail. It made a loud, low squawking sound that scared off the Puffin.

“You are here to talk,” Lara said from behind him.

Parker nearly jumped out of his socks. He spun around and looked Lara in the eyes. There was something different this time though. They didn’t have the usual shine behind them. The glow that said she was up to something nefarious. Her eyes looked more like she was exhausted, not getting enough sleep, or any at all for that matter.

“What’s wrong with you?” Parker asked, more in a concerned way than an angry way.

“I need your help. Warwick is going to take Hailee. He’s going to take her and do God knows what with her.”

“He’s going to take her?” Parker’s heart started to race again remembering that Master Terra mentioned his planning beginning soon. He really wished that he could get a break, even just a small one.

Lara nodded and Parker could see her eyes start to water. She was genuinely afraid and Parker didn’t know what to do about it. He was still on the fence about what to do. There were two sides: Help Lara destroy the world or let Master Terra take Hailee and possibly kill her. Neither option sounded like a good choice, so which was the lesser of two evils?

“What does he want with her so bad?” Parker asked.

She looked closely at the bird and patted its head. It turned and looked at her with a longing look in its eyes, like it was missing some of its family or something. Lara started to pet the bird like she were petting a dog, from its head all the way to the tip of its tail.

“I think he thinks that if he takes her and disappears, I won’t go through with my plan.”

Parker nodded his head, pretty sure that she was right. But he didn’t see how that would change anything. The Imperials were all going to be taken to the new world, so they would be there anyways. “Wait, how do you plan to take only the Imperials to your new world?” He asked the question matter-of-factly, having grown used to being put in this situation.

“I have a general sense of where the Imperials are versus the Nimps. I started to notice it a few years ago when using my Space Imperial to jump to another location. I could feel in the area I was jumping to how many Imperials there were. After that, I started to try and expand my sense of an area and I began to notice that as long as I focused on an area, I could tell how many Imperials there were and where they were located.”

Parker nodded his head as she explained the process she had gone through. He couldn’t believe the extent that his Imperials could be pushed to. How long would it take him to accomplish what she could do? Was it even possible?

“That’s when I got the idea to create a new world and take only the Imperials with me. I’ve been discriminated against time and time again by the Nimps because I’m a ‘freak’!” She ended her sentence in a shrill, mocking screech. “They don’t deserve to live among us. We’re the superior kind!”

He took a step back, not wanting to be too close if any of her Imperials were to accidentally burst out like his did. “I wouldn’t say they don’t deserve to, but they also shouldn’t knock us for having Imperials… I mean we could be really helpful, to everyone!” Parker didn’t know what was happening. He knew what she wanted was terrible, but at the same time he felt it easy to be drawn to her side, to stand behind what she believed in.

“What was Hailee doing before I took you?”

“Well, we were in class so I don’t know. I assume she was in class too but I don’t know what her schedule is.”

“What were you doing in your class?” she asked, genuinely interested to see what he had been learning.

“Uh… Alexis and I—”

Lara interrupted, “That’s the blonde you’re so keen on, right?”

Parker didn’t know how to respond to that. It was weird having a civil conversation with her. How was he was supposed to react to her sounding interested in his life? “Yeah…” he squinted, unsure of how to handle her question.

“How is she?”

“She’s fine… I think. We were being shown as an example for something. I got really flustered and accidentally shot everyone away with my Air Imperial.”

“Accidentally?” Lara asked concerned. “What do you mean accidentally?”

“I got really tense and—” he didn’t want to finish his sentence. “Afraid. I was surrounded by my class, which I hate and then a burst of air shot out from me.”

“You need to train,” Lara said. “What training are you doing at school?”

Parker looked down the mountain at the small town. It couldn’t have had more than five hundred people in it, less than the student population at school. What would he have done if he lived there? How would he train? Then he thought about school. The classes, the comfy dorm rooms, the great food and the warmth, at least inside. “I just do what we do in class and then I do homework in the evenings. We have tons of it this term.”

“That’s not enough, not nearly enough!”

“It’s not?”

“Did you accidentally attack and entire class not ten minutes ago?” Parker shrugged. “I need to train you.”

Parker’s eyes opened to the size of saucers. “Why would you train me?” He then silently asked himself why he would want her to train him.

“I need your help.”

“Who says I’m helping you?” he responded snarkily.

“Do you want to get better? To surpass your friends, even the masters?”

Parker stared at her, eyes growing wider. The thought of being the best at the school. Not only the best student, but better than the masters. How could he turn that down? Was it worth working one-on-one with one of the worst people he knew?

“Listen, without you and Hailee, my plans won’t work. I can’t do this on my own. Haven’t you wondered why I’ve kept you in the loop on what I’ve been doing?” Parker looked at her, thinking that she was right, why else would she let them in on her plans? “I needed you to try to stop me in order to make you grow and improve quicker. I thought that would be the fastest way, clearly it wasn’t enough.”

“So, let me get this straight.” Parker paused for dramatic effect. “You want to train me, because you aren’t strong enough to create a new world that will imminently kill all of the normal people?” Lara nodded her head. “But how and why would I help you?”

Lara looked at him and thought for a moment. “I need you to be able to teleport yourself to another place. Not only that, you need to be able to sense others and also be able to teleport them. Between the three of us, we can take all of the Imperials, minus Warwick, to my new world.” As she ranted, a maniacal smile etched itself onto her face.

Parker nodded his head as she talked. The thought of learning how to do that was near impossible to ignore. “Why would I help you kill billions of innocent people?”

“Innocent?” Lara spat out like a bad taste on her tongue. “Innocent? You think they’re innocent?”

“They certainly don’t deserve to be murdered!”

Lara laughed out loud. “You don’t know what it’s like. Out in the real world, outside of your nice, protected castle.”

“You’re the one who guarded the castle!” Parker interjected.

“I did that when I was still ignorant and naive.”

Parker gave her a stern look. “Then why didn’t you take it away sooner?”

“I’d forgotten about it until Hailee started going there.”

“So again, why am I helping you?”

Lara eyed him. “Warwick’s goal is to get rid of us Omnis. That includes me, you, Hailee and your two other little friends.”

Parler’s eyes went wide and his heart started to race. She was right. He couldn’t let anything happen to his friends. “Can’t we just stop him? We don’t need to kill everyone.”

“Warwick needs to be stopped and I don’t want to be near the Nimps afterwards.”

“I’ll help you stop him but I won’t help you kill the humans.”

She stood and considered what he was saying. He stared at her, waiting for a response. Time passed, minute by minute. “The Nimps don’t deserve to keep going. Come with me.”

Parker found he didn’t have much of a choice as he was now standing on a dock in the small town they had been above. People milled around oblivious to the fact that two people just appeared out of nowhere. Lara grabbed him by the arm and pulled him toward a small group of people.

“Here’s what happens.” Lara smoothly waved her arms through the air and a stream of water snaked its way out of the sea. At first, nothing happened but then people started to notice and panic.

Parker couldn’t understand what anyone was saying but it was obvious that they were not okay with what was happening. People ran around, trying to find any cover that they could. Doors slammed shut, shutters were pulled closed and there wasn’t a person left out in the open.

He looked at Lara as she twirled the water around her body and down the streets near the dock. What was she thinking doing this? This poor town didn’t deserve for her to pick on them. But he also saw what she was talking about, every single person panicked and fled.

Lara let the water drop to the ground, soaking the wooden dock and the asphalt. “Do you see what I mean? Even the people of Lovund were terrified of it and they’re around water all of the time.”

“People of Lovund…?” Parker asked. After a moment he realized that must be where they were. “Where are we? Norway again?” he said in a mocking voice.

“Yes. Lovund Norway. It’s a very peaceful little town. It’s one of the few places I’ve found to hide from Warwick.”

Parker wanted to laugh. He couldn’t believe that she could just teleport him across the world like that. And she was even willing to teach him how to, how could he turn that down?

“I don’t blame them though,” he started. “I would freak out too if out of nowhere I saw water snaking through the air and that didn’t happen regularly.”

“Did you though?” she asked.

He thought about it for a minute. “What do you mean?”

“I assume the masters still do their ridiculous little show at the beginning of school. Did you freak out in terror when they did that?”

Parker shook his head. “I guess I didn’t… but that’s just me.”

“Did any of you?”

Parker thought back to that day and remembered that every one of his peers was enthralled by it. Curious as to how it could even be possible. “No. What’s the difference then?”

“I think it’s just in our genetic makeup. We were born better.”

He gave her a disapproving look. “You’re sounding prejudice now.”

Lara huffed and threw her arms up, exasperated. “Look at them! Look at how they ran away in fear!”

“I thought you said that they discriminated against you.”

“Well, this is a very nice, little town. Do something like that in a major city and it’s completely different.”

Parker held his hand out for her to stop. “What if you gave warning instead of just going and doing it. That way it’s maybe less startling?”

Lara thought about his suggestion and then in an instant they were standing on a small island in the middle of a lake. In the distance, Parker could see a town that looked extremely peaceful.

“Where are we now?” Parker asked as he took in the scenery. A woman walked by in a fluffy winter coat. The lake itself looked to be frozen, even in the bright, midday sun. The snow didn’t seem to care that the sun was out as it stayed in place on the trees and beautiful castle that overlooked the lake.

Being next to the castle made him miss being at school, even though he hadn’t been gone for that long. What was everyone doing right now? Were they searching the school for him thinking that he had vanished on his own?

“We are in Bled, Slovenia.” She took in a deep breath and let out a happy sigh. “It’s another one of my favorite places to go to. The people here are extremely friendly, or at least in my experience they are. They also have some of the best spas in the world. Plus this scenery is to die for.”

“What is it with you and going all over the world? Isn’t Slovenia in like Britain?”

Lara laughed. “No. Slovenia is its own country to the east of Italy.” She walked to the edge of the island and stood next to the frozen lake. There was a young couple sitting on a bench they had clearly just cleaned the snow off of.

Parker couldn’t tell what they were talking about but they hadn’t noticed that he and Lara had shown up. His heart started to race, not sure how this couple would react to it. What Imperial should they demonstrate? The lake was frozen, so their Water Imperial probably wasn’t the best choice. He felt like fire was probably a bit too aggressive and would frighten most people.

Lara took a step toward them without saying anything. Parker saw the guy turn his head, acknowledging their presence.

“Ti lahko pomagam?” he asked Lara as he stood up in between them and the woman he was with.

Parker and Lara looked at him, clearly forgetting they were in a foreign country for a minute.

“Do you speak English?” Parker asked.

“A little,” the man said in a thick accent that Parker had to listen very closely to in order to understand.

“I do,” the woman said standing up from behind him. She had next to no accent, especially compared to her friend.

“Can we ask a favor of you?” Parker asked.

The woman looked at him suspiciously. “You want a favor from a complete stranger?”

Parker nodded. “We’re a bit different than most people.” Her look grew even more skeptical. “We have a certain ability that lets us do really interesting things.” Parker picked his words carefully, not exactly sure how to word what he wanted to say.

The man pursed his lips and nodded his head slowly, clearly intrigued by Parker’s words. “Go on…” he said. He motioned for Parker to show them. The woman said something in the foreign language to the man.

“Just don’t freak out.” Parker held his arm out in front of him and pulled it back quickly toward himself. A strong gust of wind came from behind the couple making them stumble a few steps forward. They didn’t show any other sign that they were panicked which made Parker happy.

After a moment of awkward, uncomfortable silence, the woman spoke. “So? What is this ability you were talking about?”

Parker looked at her confused. What did she mean, “What is this ability”? He stared at her for another moment. “What do you mean? I saw you stumble in the wind.”

It was her turn to look at him confused. “I don’t get it. Your ability is to make people stumble…?”

“No! I can control the air.”

Now she looked at him like he was an insane person. “You can’t control the wind. You just had lucky timing.”

“Then explain this,” Parker said as he pushed his hand toward her and a gust of wind knocked her down.

Her eyes grew wide. “But… that’s not possible…” The guy she was with stared at her and then began looking back and forth from her to Parker.

Parker stood his ground, but his heart was racing. Was she about to panic and run away? Her eyes said that she wanted nothing but to be somewhere else. He looked at Lara to see what she was doing and when he saw her, the grin on her face made him uneasy.

“How?” the guy asked.

How was he supposed to explain to this guy that didn’t speak much English about an entire part of the world that stays hidden? “It’s a part of who we are.”

The man looked confused by Parker’s answer. He helped the woman off of the ground and they all moved to a picnic table that was nearby. Parker had to clear the snow off of his seat before sitting down. Just to add a little more to everything they were already doing, he cleared it off using his Air Imperial to blow it off the seat. The woman watched him do it and her mouth gaped as the snowed swirled through the air.

“What are your names?” Lara asked.

“Marc.”

“Amelia,” the woman said in a different accent than she had used earlier.

Lara’s ears perked when Amelia said her name. “Are you British?” Lara asked. The woman nodded her head.

“I’m here to teach English at the local university.”

“How come you didn’t have the accent earlier?” Parker asked.

“I’m originally from the United States but have lived in London for about eight years so the accent comes and goes. I’ve been here for only like six months.”

Parker nodded his head impressed. He wanted to do something like that; go live overseas and help others out. Maybe that’s what he would do when he got older. The masters hadn’t really mentioned what they would train for in the real world. He couldn’t imagine that the missions were what his future held. If so, why didn’t he ever hear about his parents doing that?

“Explain,” the man said in his thick accent. Parker noticed that the man seemed to understand English fairly well but had a limited vocabulary when it came to speaking.

Parker had to think for a minute to figure out the best way to describe what it was they could do. “I’m what’s called an Omni. I’m of only a few that we know about but we, including you, live in a world where there are people who can control the elements.”

With that, he flicked his index finger toward Marc and they could see his hair blow back. Marc and Amelia quickly looked at the trees around them and noticed that they weren’t moving at all. They looked back at Parker with curiosity burning behind their eyes.

Parker knew it had to be all about how it was presented to the people around them. They had two people right in front of them that weren’t panicking in the least. He looked over to Lara and caught her eye and then gave her the smuggest grin he could muster. She threw back a death glare as a response.

“I can control more too.” He raised a snowball into the air and turned it back into water. Streaming it around the table, he looked at the two spectators as they watched it snake its way around the table they sat at. Nothing could pull their attention away at this point.

After a moment, Parker let the water fall on the table and become a puddle. He heard a gasp from his right and when he looked, he saw that there were a few more people standing around watching now. Parker nudged Lara with his elbow and gestured toward the new people with his head. When she saw them, she saw Parker’s grin grow even more.

“That’s amazing,” Amelia said. “What else can you do?” She had a big smile across her face. Marc had a similar expression, but Parker could see the confusion hidden behind his eyes.

Parker snapped his thumb and a flame appeared on the tip of it as if it were a lighter. He heard a few gasps come from the near group of people. Marc and Amelia were entirely enthralled by the flame. He could see it dance back and forth in the reflection in their eyes.

Lara smiled when she saw everyone’s reactions. She couldn’t believe they weren’t freaking out and running away.

“Is there anything else?” a voice asked excitedly from nearby. “Amelia, this is unbelievable, isn’t it?”

Amelia turned her head, and her eyes went wide when she saw who the voice came from. She stood up and gave a huge hug to a very rotund man in his sixties. If Parker didn’t know better, he’d have thought it was Santa. The long white hair and beard were perfect if he worked as a Santa somewhere in his free time.

“I can’t believe what I’m seeing,” the man boomed. “I’m Professor Binford. I teach alongside Amelia here, her mentor if I dare say so. How is it you can do those things?”

Parker almost started to laugh at the charisma Professor Binford spoke with. It was like talking to a small child who just learned what Play-Doh was. “I’m an Imperial—”

“But you said you were an Omni,” Amelia interrupted.

“An Omni is a special type of Imperial. Omnis are able to control all of the elements whereas an Imperial can control only one of the elements.” They nodded their heads as if they completely understood everything, he was telling them.

“So, you can control the ground too?” Professor Binford asked. “I saw you control the air, water and fire so you can control earth as well?”

Parker was impressed at how well the professor connected everything and wasn’t panicking over the fact he could do any of those things. Without saying anything else, he stomped his foot and the ground under the professor’s feet shot up into the air, lifting him several feet.

Professor Binford stood on the new plateau that had formed and looked down at everyone. He started to laugh like a little child being tickled.

Parker looked at him confused. He was glad he didn’t freak out, but the laughing didn’t make sense to him. After a moment for everyone to take in what he had done and for them to “Ooh” and “Ahh”, Parker brought the plateau back down so the professor was on flat ground once more.

The increasing crowd began to clap. Parker couldn’t help but blush as he turned to Lara and stuck his tongue out at her. “Told you that it’s all about how you present it!”