“Wait!” Parker yelled to no avail as Lara vanished from before them.

Alexis’s eyes went wide and her mouth gaped slightly. “How are we going to get back?”

Parker didn’t know what to tell her. Could he teleport them both back to the castle? He’d only teleported two people. Would he be able to focus on a destination that was so far away?

“You can do this Parker,” Alexis said squeezing his hand.

He loved the way she could read his mind sometimes, even though it got him in trouble from time to time. Squeezing her hand back, he focused on his bed back at the school, wanting nothing more than for them to make it back safely.

“Wait,” Alexis said, pulling on Parker’s hand. “We need to talk first.”

Parker’s heart started to race. What had he done this time? “Talk?”

“Lara, she needs to be stopped.”

Parker opened his mouth to talk but Alexis cut him off.

“I know she’s just being a caring mother right now, but she’s not going about it the right way.”

He knew she was right but he also saw firsthand how her mind was able to be changed. Would he be able to do it again, now that it was filled with so much rage again? “We just need to find her and stop her before she loses it.”

Before Alexis could respond, he teleported them. The next thing either of them knew, Parker was sprawled out on the stone floor and Alexis was in a heap on Parker’s bed.

Parker rubbed his head where it had hit his bed frame on the landing. It took a moment to realize that two things had happened. They had made it back safely, for the most part and they weren’t alone in the room.

“What the—?” Dexter yelled, nearly falling out of his own bed.

From across the room, Oliver screeched, “How?”

Alexis’s face lit up like the evening sunset. She looked around the room as all of the boys stared back at her. It was clearly time for bed as they were changing into their pajamas. Her heart started to race faster than a hummingbird’s wings. Without saying anything, she got up and sprinted out of the room.

“What’s wrong with her?” Gerald asked.

Oliver smacked him. “What do you think? She just appeared in a boys room that has shirtless guys in it.”

Parker couldn’t believe that they weren’t addressing the fact that they just appeared out of nowhere in the room. He looked around, confused, until Caleb spoke up.

“Where were you guys?”

Parker turned his attention to Caleb. “I honestly don’t know this time. But we need to go get her and find Master Sora.” The rest of the boys stared at the two of them, curious as to why they needed to find the master at this hour.

——

“What is it?” the master said, opening the door to his chambers.

“Lara—” Parker took a deep breath, desperate for air. “—knows.”

Master Sora’s eyes went wide. “How did she react?”

“Well, she just kind of stared at us and then vanished.” Alexis didn’t know how else to put it but knew that they just needed to find her as soon as possible.

“We definitely need to find her as soon as we can. Otherwise, who knows what will happen.”

Parker could think of exactly what was going to happen. Either one person was going to die or a whole lot of people are going to die. Would he be able to sense her core from somewhere in the world. He’d only felt it once. The thought of trying to find her so she couldn’t kill almost the whole world made his heart race a million times a second.

“Parker?” Alexis asked, squeezing his hand. “Can you find her?”

He pursed his lips. “I don’t know, but I’ll try.” He closed his eyes and put his hands together like he was praying. Reaching out with his mind, he felt all different levels of cores. At first all he could sense were other cores from within the castle. It took several minutes before he was able to differentiate and ignore those cores closest to him and focus on a single one.

There was a better than good chance that Lara wasn’t anywhere near. He couldn’t imagine that Master Terra would have stayed anywhere near the school.

Everyone stared at Parker as he focused on trying to find Lara. Alexis wanted to urge him on, but didn’t want to distract him. She looked to Caleb to see how he was taking all of this information and he didn’t seem to be phased at all.

Master Sora on the other hand looked a little troubled by what he was learning about Parker at the moment. He had never seen anyone do any of this before so he didn’t know what to expect or how he was to react to it.

After several quiet minutes Parker clapped his hands together and gave a small cheer. “I found her!”

“Where is she?” Master Sora asked.

“Where?” Parker asked, raising his eyebrows. “I have no idea.”

Everyone looked at him confused. “But you said you could sense her,” Alexis pointed out.

Parker nodded. “Correct. But it’s not like I can tell you what city she’s in. I can just feel where she’s at.”

Caleb still wasn’t understanding. “Then how did you know Alexis was at Master Sora’s chambers last time?” He was trying to make sense of how Parker was explaining it to him, but he was struggling to grasp the connection.

“I could sense Master Sora’s core then too so I assumed they were at his chambers.” Parker didn’t think it was that complicated but it was obvious that everyone else was struggling to understand. The fact that Alexis was confused baffled him the most. She knew what it was like to sense other cores, why didn’t she understand what he was saying?

Master Sora needed to get everyone back on topic and focused. “All right, how are you going to teleport to her if you don’t know where she is physically?”

Parker thought about it. “Honestly, I don’t know. I’ve only teleported myself once; and it was to a place that I knew very well. And even then, I ended up missing slightly and not noticing that the room we appeared in had other people in it.”

“So, what do we do?” Alexis asked.

“Do you sense any other cores?” the master asked, wondering if she had found Master Terra and Hailee.

Parker refocused on Lara’s core and felt around it, reaching out in every direction. It seemed like she was alone, or at least there were no other Imperials within a close proximity of her. His heart gave a little, happy beat at the thought that they still had time.

They decided he needed to give a couple practice goes around the castle. Everyone split up and ran to different parts of the school, ones that Parker had never been to before. He had to reach out and find their cores, then teleport himself there.

Once he arrived at the first spot, Alexis jumped with joy and gave him a big hug with a kiss on the cheek. Parker’s heart raced. It had been a while since they’d been able to hug without having other people around. He wished he could take her and disappear somewhere for a while just so they could not have to worry about their lives or someone else’s just for a little bit, but he knew he had to keep going.

He reached out for Caleb’s next and felt it. It was very faint, but it was unmistakably his. Parker grabbed Alexis’s hand and focused as hard as he could on Caleb’s core, feeling the ground where it stood and, in an instant, the two of them were standing in front of Caleb.

“You’re going to have to teach me how to do that,” Caleb said with a big smile on his face. “Now, you need to find Master Sora. Will you be able to take all three of us?”

Parker shrugged his shoulders. “Guess we’ll find out,” he said with a laugh. He reached out to find the master’s core and he couldn’t sense it anywhere. After a few moments of not feeling it anywhere he opened his eyes and huffed loudly.

“What’s wrong?” Alexis asked.

“He can’t find him,” Caleb answered for him. “What’s different?”

Parker tried to figure it out. He had no clue what was different now. Why couldn’t he sense the master? It didn’t make any sense. “I don’t know. Nothing is different. For you two, I just reached out and sensed your cores, but for some reason, I can’t find the master’s core. It’s like it’s hidden or something.”

“Find one of the other masters then,” Caleb suggested. “Maybe he’s with one of them.”

Parker liked Caleb’s suggestion, but he didn’t know how to sense the core of someone who’s core he didn’t already know. He tried to reach out for any of the masters, but he had no idea whose core was whose. “Alexis, how do I know whose core to focus on?”

She was taken aback by his question. There wasn’t really an answer she could give him that would make sense. She just knew whose was whose and didn’t have to think about it. Focusing, Alexis took her turn and reached out, sensing for one of the masters’ cores and locked on within seconds.

“Found one. I think it’s Master Kingston.” Alexis started to tap the beat of her core on her leg. Parker listened carefully to the rhythm of the taps to know exactly what he needed to feel when he reached out.

After a moment, Parker reached out again and sensed the rhythm Alexis had been tapping. He grabbed their hands and teleported all of them. When they landed on the floor, Parker began heaving for air, completely worn out from the trip.

“May I help you?” Master Keegan asked.

Parker looked around and saw the cramped state of Master Keegan’s chambers. He let out a large sigh of frustration. “We aren’t supposed to be here!”

“It’s okay Parker, really,” Alexis tried to calm him down some, but she could see the anger rising in his body. “We’ll find him, it’s okay.”

Master Keegan cleared his throat. “Anything I can help the two of you with?”

“Two of us?” Parker asked. “There’s three…” he said as he looked around. It took a moment to realize that Caleb wasn’t with them. “Are you serious?” he burst out.

Alexis wrapped her arm around Parker and pulled him away from the master. “It’s going to be okay,” she whispered to him.

Master Keegan stood to the side, uncomfortable. “What’s going on?” he asked, clearly getting frustrated.

“We’re trying to find Master Sora using Parker’s Space Imperial, but we weren’t able to sense him. We thought we’d found Master Kingston but clearly had that wrong as well. And on top of that, for some reason Caleb didn’t make the jump with us somehow.”

“Not going to lie,” the master said. “Didn’t see that answer coming.” He laughed a little and took a seat at his desk. “So, you can just teleport?”

“That’s what I’m supposed to be able to do,” Parker grumbled.

Master Keegan scratched his chin. “How long have you been practicing this?”

“Well, like… a day…” As he said it, Parker realized how ridiculous it was for him to be getting upset over it.

“You’ve been learning how to do something that only one person we know of knows how to do?” They both nodded. “Just making sure I’m on the right page here. So, you’re doing this thing that one person can do, in the whole world, and you’re getting mad at yourself for not being perfect at it?”

Alexis stifled a laugh. “That’s about right,” she said.

Master Keegan got up out of his seat and walked to Parker. After a moment, he gently slapped Parker across the back of the head. “You’re being ridiculous child!”

“I realize that! But we don’t have time for me to not be perfect at it right away.”

“Get your head on straight child! You are doing a great job and you will get there soon enough.”

“I’ll try. Right now, I need to find Caleb.” He focused on finding Caleb’s core. It took several minutes before he was able to find him and in an instant, he teleported right to Caleb.

“There you are!” Caleb exclaimed.

“Now, let’s find Master Kingston.”