Master Kingston cleared her throat as she stared at the three students who had appeared out of nowhere in front of her desk. “May I help you?”

Parker had forgotten how beautiful her chambers were. He’d grown so used to Master Sora’s chambers and it’s tight, cozy quarters that he felt like her chambers were almost too big, especially for one person.

The master cleared her throat once more as the three kids stared around her chambers in awe. “May. I. Help. You?” She paused between each word to drive her point home.

“Sorry!” Alexis nearly screeched. “We’re just… uh… looking for Master Sora.”

Master Kingston raised an eyebrow. “And how, may I ask, did you end up in my chambers?”

“Well, I couldn’t sense his core, so we reached out and found your core, well, after accidentally ending up in Master Keegan’s chambers. We thought you might know where he was.” Parker could tell that the master believed him but didn’t like the fact that he could just appear in her chambers whenever he pleased. He saw her reach down and lock a drawer in her desk.

“This must be the problem,” Master Sora said from behind them. All three of the kids jumped and spun around. Had he been there the whole time? “Warwick must’ve learned how to hide or change the rhythm and beat of his core, which one I’m not sure. That must be why Lara needs Parker’s help.”

Parker looked at him startled, confused and worried. “You think she needs me to help locate him?” The master nodded his head. “But I’m terrible at it. She’s the much better choice,” Parker said, pointing at Alexis.

Alexis looked at him with a mixture of emotions. Was she happy that he’d just given her a compliment or mad because she’d just suggested that Lara should have taken her for training instead of him. “How come we couldn’t sense you Master Sora?”

“I changed the rhythm of my core.”

“What?” Parker said, mouth slightly gaping. “That’s possible?”

Master Sora nodded his head. “Yes. And if the core doesn’t match what you think it should be, then you’ll miss it every time.”

“How did you change it?” Caleb asked.

Everyone walked over to Master Kingston’s desk and took a seat in the comfy chairs she had angled toward her. Master Sora explained the process on how to change the rhythm of a core. They could either go into a meditative state, like Master Sora just had, which calms the core down and gives it a very slow and smooth rhythm. If that doesn’t work, then the only other choice is to be unconscious.

“All right, I want you to reach out and feel for Warwick, er… I mean Master Terra.”

Parker put all his focus into trying to locate Master Terra. He scanned as far as he possibly could but with no luck. He had no idea what to actually look for. How was he supposed to know which core was Master Terra’s? He looked at Master Sora and shook his head with a grim expression on his face.

“I had a feeling. He must know how to mask his core.”

Parker shook his head again. “I don’t even know what Master Terra’s core rhythm feels like.”

He stood sulking for a moment when he felt Alexis tapping his hand with her finger. It took a moment for him to realize what she was doing. She must have figured out Mater Terra’s core rhythm. Parker wanted to grab her and hug her as tight as he could and give her a kiss, but he didn’t dare do it in front of everyone.

“How?” Parker whispered to her while the others talked.

“I remember it from before he left.”

“Then why didn’t you mention that earlier?” Parker’s heart started to beat a little harder.

“I’m sorry. I just thought we should focus on small things first. But you need to calm yourself before you accidentally teleport yourself somewhere else.”

That comment made Parker even more heated because he knew that she was absolutely right. No one had noticed the fact that they were arguing with each other so Parker took that time to try and sense Master Terra.

Focusing again, he was able to locate the master, but barely. The rhythm was very faint. He wasn’t sure he would be able to teleport everyone there. As he felt around, he could sense another core close by. He knew it had to be Hailee’s.

“I found them! I think,” he grimaced. “I don’t think that I can teleport all of us to him though.”

Master Sora’s face lit up. “You don’t need to. Just teleport him here, and then when we capture him, we can send someone to get Hailee.” He was practically jumping with joy. “So, where are they?”

Parker wanted to give Master Sora a gentle slap up the side of the head. They’d just talked about how he couldn’t say where they were exactly, just that he could get to where their core was resonating from. On top of that, he was trying to keep his focus on the master’s core so he didn’t lose him.

“Never mind, just bring him here and I’ll capture him.”

Before Parker had the chance to teleport Master Terra, he sensed another core appear close by and then all three of them were gone. His eyes shot open and everyone looked at him startled.

“What’s wrong?” Alexis asked, squeezing his hand again.

Parker looked around as if he was trying to spot the three of them where they were, like they’d vanished from in front of him. “They’re gone.”

Master Sora’s expression pulled a one-eighty. “What do you mean?”

“I mean they just disappeared. I don’t know where they went.”

“Well search for him again!” the master demanded, coming off harsher than he intended but not enough to make him apologize.

Parker was startled by the master’s voice. He couldn’t believe the master was being so harsh. It wasn’t his fault that they disappeared. Grabbing Alexis’s wrist, he pulled her after him as he left the room.

Alexis spun him around once they were in the corridor and no one else was around to see. She pulled him into a hug and squeezed him hard. It took a moment, but she felt his breathing slow down. “It’s okay.”

He knew she meant well but at the same time he knew it really wasn’t okay. If Lara got too heated, there was a chance that she would try to create her own world. And he was pretty sure that if she were angry enough, she wouldn’t even bother trying to take the Imperials of the world with her.

“I need to find them again.” Alexis nodded but didn’t say anything in response. “How did you find him in the first place?”

“I didn’t. I found Hailee and then felt one near her and figured it had to be him. Was I wrong to assume?”

Parker shook his head. “Not at all. It had to be him because right before they vanished, I felt Lara’s core show up. Which means that she found them and took them somewhere else.”

Alexis groaned. She was beyond tired of Lara and everything she was doing. All it did was make everyone’s lives difficult. She understood that she was just trying to protect her daughter but she didn’t really understand what it was that Master Terra could do to Hailee that would be so bad.

“Okay, let me try to find her.” He closed his eyes, not noticing that Caleb walked up just after. Reaching out once again, he searched all over, weeding through all of the different cores he was sensing trying to find the right one. After several minutes, he found the one he needed. Lara’s core, he knew it was hers, but it had definitely changed.

Along with Lara, he could sense that there were others around as well. He recognized the master’s and Hailee’s but there were more, close by. “Got em!” Parker shouted. He opened his eyes and saw Caleb standing there with them. He was glad that he’d come out, but upset because he wanted to kiss Alexis again.

“You found them again?” Caleb asked excitedly.

Parker nodded with a huge smile on his face. He made eye contact with Alexis and could tell that she knew exactly what he wanted. She confirmed that she knew what he was thinking when she said, “Later.” Caleb looked at the two of them trying to figure out what they were talking about and after a moment it clicked, and he made a gagging sound at the two of them which made all of them laugh.

“Let’s just go now so we don’t lose them again.” Parker grabbed both of their arms. He’d almost teleported the three of them before, so he was kind of confident in doing it again, even though it was a much larger distance. At this point, it was this or lose them again, so Parker didn’t feel he had much choice.

“What about the masters?” Alexis asked.

Before anyone could answer her the three of them were standing among the hustle and bustle of a very busy sidewalk in a town with extremely tall buildings surrounding all of the streets. Parker couldn’t believe that no one acknowledged the fact that three kids just appeared out of nowhere in the middle of the sidewalk.

“We don’t have the time to worry about them.” Parker kept ahold of their hands as he frantically searched around for any sign of Lara, Master Terra or Hailee. How was he supposed to find them in the chaos that surrounded them?

“Over there!” Alexis shouted over the noise of everything. She was pointing across a street that was jammed with cars.

Parker followed her finger and saw Master Terra and Lara staring at each other from two feet away. He didn’t know what was about to happen but it couldn’t be good. He then saw Hailee right behind Master Terra but something seemed off. Her skin tone wasn’t as bright as normal. The expression on her face was depressed compared to its normal cheerfulness.

“Why don’t you just teleport Hailee to us and then we can disappear?” Caleb’s heart raced a million miles a second when he saw Hailee. He thought it looked like she was okay but definitely not her normal self.

Parker shook his head. “Lara would just find us anyways.”

“But Master Terra wouldn’t,” Caleb pointed out.

Parker knew he was right but it didn’t feel right. Something made him think that if he tried something like that, terrible things would happen. His heart started to race more and more the longer he watched the silent stand-off between Lara and Master Terra.

“Let’s just get over there,” Alexis said.

They rushed to the nearest crosswalk so they could make it to them, hopefully before anything bad happened. Parker wanted to just fly over but he remembered how people reacted when they just saw things that they didn’t understand. And being in a crowded area like this would likely make it a thousand times worse.

Traffic rushed by as they waited for the signal to change so they could get across the street. Time seemed to drag as they waited. Something bad was bound to happen if they couldn’t get there quick enough.

The signal changed and they sprinted across the street as fast as they could. When they came up on the stand-off they were behind Master Terra. Lara could see them over the master’s shoulder and when she noticed them a smile grew on her face. Parker knew exactly what she was thinking but what was he going to do that wouldn’t cause a panic in this crowd?

“Let her go,” Lara said loud enough so the three new arrivals could hear.

“And if I don’t?”

Her eyes grew larger than Parker thought was even possible. “Let her go, or this ends for you.” Parker knew she meant that if he didn’t hand her over, Lara was going to kill him, even with all of the witnesses surrounding them.

The crowds rushed by, completely oblivious to what was happening right in the middle of everything. It wasn’t until Master Terra used his Earth Imperial to break the street apart and try to escape.

Mass chaos broke out. People ran in every direction, regardless of what was in their way. Parker saw people jumping across the hoods of cars, cutting in front of moving cars, trying to hide in the nearest building, anything to get away from whatever was happening.

Lara could be heard laughing over the sound of everyone screaming. It sent chills down Parker’s spine because he knew at this point, Master Terra didn’t really stand a chance. His only real chance had been staying hidden from her but now that she’d found him, things were not going to go smoothly.

“What are we going to do?” Alexis asked in a terrified voice. Parker could feel her trembling next to him.

“I don’t know. Try to save Hailee?” he asked as he saw her and Master Terra disappear around the corner of a building.

Caleb took off down the street and turned around the corner without saying anything. Parker took off behind him quickly with Alexis right on his tail. As he turned the corner he couldn’t believe his eyes. The road was completely destroyed. Cars were flipped over and smoking. He could hear people screaming in terror from all around.

Lara was flying through the air, right on the trail of the master. Caleb was using his Water Imperial to create an ice path that went through the air. He slid along it, keeping up with everyone.

Alexis screamed at the top of her lungs, and everything froze. Parker couldn’t even move until Alexis unfroze him. They sprinted through the frozen chaos to catch up. Alexis was surprised that she was able to freeze such a large scale setting. However, the noise coming from around the corner could still be heard. Sirens wailed in the distance and they knew that they had a very short amount of time before the freezing lost its effect.

When they caught up to Lara, they saw that there was fire coming out of her palm. Her palm was mere inches from the master’s face. Parker wondered if he should let it happen since he promised to help her stop him, or if he should move the master since it was the morally right thing to do.

Time was running out and he had to make a decision. He’d thought homework had been tough, but nothing compared to this. Save a man who was willing to rip his daughter’s own being away from her, potentially killing her in the process or willingly let him be killed and know that it would be on his conscious for the rest of his life.