The five of them met up in the common room that next morning. Ana looked just as shy and withdrawn as she had the night before. Alexis and Hailee were rambling on about the duels for the day.

"Hey, you guys ready for breakfast?" Caleb asked. Parker turned his head to look at Caleb, shocked that he had been the one to speak up first. He caught him looking at Ana as he said it.

"Yeah, we're ready. We already told Ana how the morning works and that she'd come with us to Combining the Imperials." The excitement in Alexis's words could be seen on her face. Ana smiled acknowledging that she knew what was coming and Parker thought he saw a hint of excitement in her eyes.

They made their way to the dining hall and found a table with no one else at it. After a few minutes of talking and eating they were joined by Cassidy, Clay and Evelyn.

"You two need to come back!" Cassidy exclaimed. "We miss you so much and we still haven't found anyone to fill your places." Cassidy's eyes wandered from Parker and Alexis over to Ana who had sunk into her chair more than she had when she sat down.

"Who's this? I've never seen her around before," Evelyn asked.

"Well that's because she's new to the school. She's the only first year in the whole school!" Alexis said eagerly, excited that the only first year in the school had been sorted into The House of Erion.

"Interesting. So is Master Sora going to hold private lessons with her since she's the only one?" Clay asked.

"She's actually already very talented and can control her Imperial rather well. So he mentioned that he wants her to join our classes because he thinks she'll be just fine."

"Well if she's that good..." Evelyn's words trailed off as she thought. "Maybe she should try out for the Aether team then..."

Parker looked at Ana, not sure that she had the right personality for it. Everyone he knew that played Aether had a more outgoing and upfront personality. Ana was so reserved from what he had seen that he didn't feel Ana was right for the job.

"What's Aether?" Ana asked in a hushed voice.

"It's the sport we play here. Each house has a team and our team is currently down two players because these two," Cassidy said gesturing at Parker and Alexis. "Bailed on us this year. I mean yeah it's for a good reason but still." Parker could tell that she was joking but that she was also truly upset that they weren't playing this year.

They finished up their breakfast and made their way to Combining the Imperials. After everyone had taken their seats Master Kingston made her way to the front of the room.

"Welcome everyone. Good news today if you haven't heard already. Our only first year student arrived last night and was sorted into The House of Erion. I'm a little bummed that she didn't join my house but I'll manage to get over it." She gestured for Ana to stand and introduce herself but that was the last thing on her list of things she wanted to do.

After a few silent seconds Master Kingston moved on. "All right. You've had a week to gain an understanding of what it is we'll be doing in her this term. You are going to get into groups with one student from each house. There will be five groups and Ana, you will just have to join one of the groups so you can see what it is we're doing here."

Master Kingston read off the groups and everyone moved to their spots. Parker loved coming to this class because he got to try out all new things and see how the other Imperials worked. But he hated that he didn't get to be in groups with any of his friends. However, he was getting closer to Eliot who seemed to be in all of his classes that weren't Air Imperial specific.

Ana joined Parker's group with Eliott and two others that Parker didn't know. "So what do you think it is that we're supposed to do?" Eliott asked the group.

"My guess is we're going to have to do something like the first day but now we have to use all four of the elements." A girl in red robes spoke with confidence. "Oh, I'm Cesily by the way."

"Oh yeah! You were in Alexis's group on the first day!" Parker remembered who she was now. He'd only seen her a few times and could only recall her name from time to time.

"Yeah, she's was brilliant. We were all stuck on what we could do and then she came up with what you saw." Parker knew how she'd come up with it. They'd done it before, when they'd gone to the hidden chamber to stop Lara but he wasn't going to tell anyone else that.

"I'm Parker and this is Ana," he said gesturing at her.

"I'm Eliott."

"My name's Raelyn."

Master Kingston clapped her hands gaining everyone's attention. "All right here we go. You will be performing another show for the class in your new group. You must think of a way to combine all four of the Imperials for this presentation. Your presentations will be at the end of next week."

"So it's an exam?" A student from The House of Leith asked.

"Why yes, yes it is Vaughn. This will be your first exam of the term. You'll have the rest of this time and all of the classes until then to work and practice. I don't require that you come here to do it, feel free to use whatever space you like." With that, Master Kingston left the room. Most of the groups got up and left to plan and practice somewhere else.

"Since we don't have to meet here, do you guys want to go somewhere else?" Parker asked.

"I say we just stay here since everyone else left. Well besides their group at least." Eliott pointed to Alexis's group.

"Do you think we could talk to other groups to get an idea? She never said that we couldn't..." Parker loved his idea to work with Alexis's group but the others in his group didn't seem to like it as much.

"From the sounds of it, it's going to be a show like last time where we vote on each other. Do you think the voting counts as our grade or is it just the show that we put on?" Cesily sounded nervous about how they were going to be scored on their exam. "Plus we have a fifth in our group that we have to think about as well, and on top of that, she's just a first year."

"Show her Ana. Show her that you're not just a first year." Parker looked at Ana who gave him a look that said she did not want to prove anything. "Come on, show that how good you are."

After a few more minutes of goading from Parker, Ana held her hand out in front of her and a spinning ball of air appeared. She kept it going for a moment and then stopped it.

"Wait, do that again," Eliott told Ana. She slowly put her hand back out and created the ball of air. He snaked a stream of water through the air into the spinning ball of air. It quickly filled and grew as he fed more water into it. The ball of water froze over and fell to the table shattering everywhere. "Not funny dude," Eliott said and Parker laughed a little. "We need to talk some time, I still don't really know what happened there…"

Ana looked at everyone in the group confused, wishing that she had been there for whatever happened. "So we just have to put on a presentation for the other groups using all four Imperials? Doesn't sound so bad." Parker was glad to see that she seemed to be coming out of her shell a little even if it wasn't a lot.

They met up again at lunch and talked about how their groups were doing. "We only met during our class time, the others had to go off to their Imperial classes. Apparently we're the only ones that are in the afternoon." Caleb sounded down that they only got to meet during the class time. He looked like he had several ideas on what his group was going to do.

"Hailee, what did you group do for your first exam in Combining the Imperials?" Parker asked trying not to hint at the fact that his group had come up with pretty much nothing.

"Nice try. We don't divulge our secrets to the underclassmen. It's up to you to create a show for your class. But I will tell you that if you put on a good enough show you'll be in Master Kingston's good graces. I had her as well and we nailed it." She could see Parker's mood sadden and figured that his group hadn't come up with much.

"Hailee? Would you take Ana to go see Aether practice after lunch?" Alexis asked. "I think she'd do well there and she doesn't know what it is."

"Sure can!" Hailee said. Ana looked equal parts nervous and excited.

"Can I ask why you two aren't playing this year? Did you not like it?"

"No, no, no, no, no we love it!" Alexis practically yelled.

"If you love it so much why aren't you playing this year?"

"Well, something happened in the middle of last year to us and we've changed. We don't have the control over our Imperials like we need to in order to play Aether well. So it's just better for the team if we sit for a year and get everything under control." Ana looked at her confused. Alexis saw this and looked at the others in the group. Everyone's eyes said the same thing, "We should tell her."

Before Ana could ask what had happened Parker spoke. "We'll fill you in on everything this evening after class. Let's say we meet on the roof at six?" Everyone nodded except for Ana.

"Meet on the roof? I mean I'm good at flying but I don't think I can fly up three hundred feet straight…" They could hear the nerves in her voice and they all laughed. "What's funny?"

"Oh Ana, we have access from our house. The balcony is only ten feet or so below the roof. We would never ask you to fly up three hundred feet. That would be insane!" Alexis was quick to help ease her nerves and she could tell that it helped immediately.

The rest of the day went by quickly. Parker was waiting on the roof for everyone to arrive. He tried to practice controlling his Fire Imperial but ran into the problem of it getting out of control each time. Every failed attempt made him more and more frustrated until her heard something from behind him.

"Oh. My. God." Parker hadn't noticed Ana appear on the roof behind him. Hearing her voice made him almost jump out of his skin. "How… did you… do that…?" she stammered.

"Well, that's actually what we're going to tell you up here," he laughed as he said it. Almost as if on cue, the other three appeared.

"Sorry, we were waiting on Ana but then we heard the two of you talk up here," Alexis said.

"Wait, how long were you watching me?" Parker asked Ana.

"Long enough to be impressed… so explain now how you can do that. You're an Air Imperial… right?"

Alexis motioned for everyone to sit in a circle on the roof so they could talk. "Last year we were targeted by a past student named Lara Wilkes. Well we weren't all targeted but Parker and Hailee were and we couldn't not help out."

"What did she want from you?"

"She's what's called an Omni, someone who controls all four Imperials. When she went here she started to tinker in different Imperials that only Omnis can apparently access."

"Like what?" Parker noticed that Ana could be more verbal and outgoing it was something that intrigued her.

"She taught herself how to control space and time. Which I'm slowly noticing go hand in hand with one another…"

"Anyways, she was kidnapping students and came to Parker telling him that he had until the end of term to save them," Caleb said. "Oh, we should probably tell you that I'm an Omni as well… I found out when I arrived last year. I didn't know anything at all coming into the school."

"You can control all of the Imperials?" she gasped as she asked.

"Yeah… Alexis and Parker got sorted into The House of Erion right away and they held me after and eventually placed me there too."

"So, you're an Omni that was placed in The House of Erion?" she asked Caleb and he nodded. "And you two are Air Imperials?" she asked looking at Parker and Alexis, they nodded as well. "You you're an Air Imperial too but older right?" she asked Hailee.

"Yep! Lara was an Omni like Caleb, just way more advanced because she'd been practicing. She left the school a week before she was supposed to graduate but before she did she created a bubble around the school that connected it to the rest of the world. That's why you went to that subway station. It would've brought you straight here instead of you having to travel to… wait where did your parents drop you at? I don't actually know where in the United States the school actually is."

"They stopped right near where Idaho, Wyoming and Montana are close together. But I had to travel a ways after that and I don't know what direction I went."

"How'd you know where to go then?" Parker asked.

"I… don't really know. I just went with what felt right and eventually made it to the edge of the bridge on the lake and saw the beautiful castle." They stared as she told her story with mouths hanging open.

"Back to what happened. The masters tried to intervene and Lara ended up taking away her Space Imperial around the school. Eventually we found her hidden chamber in the school where she was keeping the kidnapped students," Alexis explained.

"What was she doing with them?" Ana asked with worry in her voice.

"She was draining their ability to control their own Imperials. She'd taken two members from each house. Lara was trying to create her own world that would be an almost exact duplicate of Earth."

"What's so wrong with that? Then she wouldn't be here anymore right?"

"That's what we said last year to the masters. But apparently in order for her to create her duplicate world, it would obliterate this one, killing everyone left on it."

"Oh… well… thank you then," Ana squeaked.

"You're welcome, but you technically would've been okay. She was going to take all of Earth's Imperials with her to her new world leaving all of the humans behind." Alexis hated reliving everything that had happened.

"Well, obviously we stopped her but that was mostly because she just disappeared. She was getting ready to kill me, Parker and Hailee when Caleb attacked her. Something happened and a burst of energy shot out from her at us and now we're all Omnis…"

"Not all of us, just Alexis and I," Parker said. "Unless something changed with Hailee. We haven't seen any differences in her. But with whatever hit us from her, it threw our own Imperials out of whack and we're just starting to gain some control over what Imperial we actually use when we try to. I accidentally burned Alexis really bad." Alexis pulled his shirt collar to the side a bit showing her burn more clearly. Ana winced at the mark thinking about how it must've felt for that to happen.

"Yeah… I was mad for a while but we're okay now. And in fact, we're actually both fireproof now. My Fire Imperial hadn't kicked in yet when the accident happened." She held her hand out in front of her with her palm facing the sky. A small flame appeared in her and Ana gasped.

"That's amazing…" Parker moved his hand to the flame and slowly fed air into it causing the flame to grow in size. When it grew to the size of a tennis ball Caleb snuffed it out with a thick stream of water. Parker then focused his mind on the roof and moved his hand slowly out in front of him. He pushed down and the up quickly causing a tile of the roof to raise into the air. He spun it around some and then lowered it back into position.

Ana sat for a moment too stunned to say anything. After several minutes she finally spoke. "This is amazing. I can't believe you guys can do this… And Caleb, the fact that you were born an Omni instead of it being an accident… that's almost even more amazing." She blushed a little as she said it.

"That's pretty much everything there is to know… I think at least," Alexis laughed as she said it.

"Why did Eliott say not funny to you Parker?" she asked.

"Oh, that goes with me not being able to control my Imperials, which has gotten much better since. We were doing our show and we had a large ball of water that Caleb, I and our roommate were controlling while Eliott swam inside it. Well, while he was swimming, something happened and I somehow accidentally turned the giant ball of water into ice freezing him inside it. Obviously he made it out okay but I turned that ball of water today into ice as a little joke. I think he caught the humor in it."

"Wow, that's incredible. I still can't believe that Omnis are even a real thing. I take it everyone knows about you three then?"

"Actually only some know about all three of us. Mostly just The House of Erion know about me and Alexis. Only present company and the masters know about Caleb. Ours was an accident that happened in a public setting with our house. Caleb's is under control and no one else knows about it. Ever since Lara it's been kept a secret. When she was here they were very open about it. It actually made her really popular."

"Then why did she leave?" Ana asked.

"The masters wouldn't feed her desire to control more than the four Imperials."

"That makes sense then. I don't blame them."

"That's everything up to now, do you have any questions?" Alexis asked.

"I have a million questions but I'll sort through them some before I throw them all at you guys," she laughed.

"What'd you think of Aether?" Caleb asked.

"She was amazing!" Hailee blurted.

"What do you mean? She played?" Caleb asked.

"Not only did she play, they're practically begging her to join the team. The way she flew around the field, it was amazing. She'll make a phenomenal attacker!"

"I'm not going to lie Ana," Parker began to say. "I didn't think you'd do well on the team. You're so withdrawn that I figured it wouldn't exactly be your cup of tea."

"Well, it has to do with my Imperial which makes me much more comfortable and outgoing. I think it's going to be a lot of fun. Now we just need to find one more for the team."

Parker thought for a moment on who would be a good shooter to fill Alexis's shoes. "Maybe Emma would be good…" Parker thought out loud. "I saw her drop her brother crazy fast in a duel. She seemed to be really good," he said.

"I'll bring it up to Evelyn when I see her tomorrow then," Ana said.

"We should probably head in for dinner now," Alexis suggested. "I mean, the sun has already set…" They laughed and made their way down to The Regale.