“I’m sure it’ll pass soon enough,” Parker mocked derisively. “I don’t think this storm is ever going to pass!” He knew he shouldn’t be getting this mad at her but being cooped up inside was starting to drive him mad.

“I just don’t get why you’re so flustered about everything right now. We have everything we need at our disposal. What’s really going on?” Alexis was trying to dig deeper to find the root of all his frustration.

“It’s nothing!” Parker snapped back. “I just need real fresh air.” He turned and stormed off down the boys’ corridor toward his room. The rain pounded against the window next to his bed. It sounded as though the glass was going to shatter and a hurricane would whip through the room.

Parker sat staring out of his window trying to come up with some way to get outside without the weather affecting him. Everything that came to mind was something that he figured would get him hurt, if not killed.

The door to their room opened and Caleb walked through. “Hey!” Parker jumped, not hearing the door open. He had not expected Caleb to be the one to walk through and didn’t know what to say to him. “You okay?” Caleb asked seeing the look on Parker’s face.

“Yeah… just didn’t expect to see you here any time soon.” A smile crept up on his face as he realized that Caleb checked himself out of the Medical Ward. “So, this means you’re back?” Caleb nodded his head with a big smile on his face.

“What are you up to? You look like you’re planning some type of escape or something.”

“Oh, no. It’s nothing. Just a pipe-dream.”

Parker led Caleb around the new and improved House of Erion. Caleb seemed to like all of the new arrangements that the masters had come up with. “Man…”

“What’s wrong?” Parker asked him as they stood in front of the fire.

“I’m going to have to jump up onto the hearth now…”

The rest of the week seemed to go by much quicker with Caleb being back with the group. It seemed as though nothing were different from before everything happened. It took a little getting used to for Parker but he did his best to hide any thoughts or reactions he had to Caleb’s new injury. It didn’t seem to be affecting him any, which didn’t really make sense to Parker. If it had been him that lost his eye he knew he’d be walking into all sorts of stuff with his depth perception being off like that.

“Hey… Caleb,” Parker started to say.

“What’s up?” Caleb responded.

“Never mind.”

“Everything okay?” Caleb asked confused.

Parker wanted to ask how he wasn’t having trouble moving around or anything but he didn’t want to be rude. He knew that almost everyone else that ran into him asked him some question about the injury and Parker wanted to be the one person who didn’t care that it had happened. “Yeah, everything’s fine. Nothing to worry about.” The look on Caleb’s face told Parker that he was pretty sure what the question was without him even asking.

They started to make their way down to breakfast and realized that sunshine was coming in through the windows for the first time in two weeks. It had been the worst storm any of them had seen. While Parker had his head turned, staring out of a window in the corridor, Caleb raised a stone in the floor in front of Parker causing him to trip and fall almost landing on his face. At the last second, Parker caught himself with a burst of wind blowing up from the floor. It slowed him down fast enough that he was able to put his hands out to catch himself.

“What was that for?” Parker yelled as Caleb was laughing.

“That’s how I’m getting around just fine. I’m using my Earth Imperial almost constantly to know what my surroundings are and where they are in relation to me.”

Parker stared at him in awe, mouthing gaping and eyes wide. “How? There’s no way you can keep your focus going that long. I can’t even make it through class sometimes.”

“Try me,” Caleb said and he closed his eye.

Parker didn’t move for a moment and then attacked Caleb right there in the corridor with everyone around. The others near them quickly darted out of the way and hugged the walls. He sent blast after blast of air and water at Caleb. Not a single one connected with his target. No matter how hard he tried, he couldn’t land a single blow on Caleb. He was untouchable.

“See? With my one eye, I see what you’re doing above the ground, and with my Imperial I see how your feet are moving. Wasn’t easy to do at first, but now I’m near flawless with it.” Caleb laughed after Parker stopped his assault. He opened his eye and gestured for them to keep walking. Everyone else in the hall remained frozen in their spots unsure of what had just happened between fellow housemates.

When they took their usual seats, Parker noticed that the tables were getting emptier and emptier. With two years of students graduating and only having one replacement student so far, the Lancastre population was quickly diminishing.

Master Sora and Master Terra stood up and began making their way out of the entrance. They walked side by side but didn’t say a word to each other. Hailee saw Master Sora walking their way and her heart started to race. She may have forgiven him for not letting them see Caleb, but why wouldn’t he tell her who her father was?

Both of the masters stopped at their table and then looked at each other, unaware as to why the other was there. As if on cue, they both started to talk and then stopped. Looking at each other again, Master Sora motioned for Master Terra to go first.

“I expect to see the lot of you at the woods in an hour.” He turned and left without saying anything else. Parker turned to look at Alexis and see if she was thinking the same thing he was. Something was wrong.

“Can I speak to the five of you?” Master Sora asked. Parker always thought it was funny when the masters would ask permission to talk to them.

“Well, duh. What are we going to do? Plug our ears and make noises so we don’t hear what you say?” Ana was the one who was willing to point that out verbally unlike any of the others.

“That’s fair,” Master Sora said with a laugh. “I just wanted you to know that we’re doing everything we can to try and find who attacked the House of Erion.”

Parker couldn’t figure out why he was stopping to tell them that. They figured that they were doing that anyway, without having to be told. “Thank you,” Parker said just to be nice. “But, why are you telling us that?”

“Well, due to that, and the storm that finally ended, we didn’t have a chance to go out and try to recruit any new students.”

They continued to stare at him blankly trying to figure out why he was talking to them personally about this instead of just making an announcement to the entire school. After a moment of silence, Alexis piped up. “Is there something else on your mind? It seems like you want to talk to us about something.”

Master Sora broke eye contact and started to shift around uncomfortably. His actions were starting to make everyone nervous. They’d never seen him so bothered by anything before. “I was wanting to use you five as guinea pigs for a new… program that I’d like to start.”

Everyone let out a sigh of relief. They each expected to hear some awful news about something else or that they were in trouble for something. “We’d love to help you out,” Hailee chimed in.

“What’s this ‘program’ you’re thinking of?” Caleb asked.

“Well… you see, that’s the thing,” Master Sora said, still looking uneasy. “This would be completely between us and no one else would be able to know about it.”

Everyone’s attention was dialed in on Master Sora by these words. Parker had never been so focused on anything before. What could the master be planning that not even the other masters would know?

Alexis was having the same thought but decided to voice hers instead. Master Sora looked at her, took a breath and said, “Let’s talk in my chambers.” He disappeared leaving them at their table staring intently at nothing.

“I still think he might be an Omni…” Parker said as they stood up and made their way to his chambers.

When they got there, his door was cracked open, so they made their way in without announcing their arrival. Everyone took a seat. Alexis in the chair. Parker in the windowsill behind the master’s desk. Caleb leaned again a bookshelf and Hailee and Ana sat on the floor.

“I want to send the five of you on little missions/quests for lack of a better word.”

Parker thought about that for a moment before saying anything. “Like off of school grounds types of things?” Master Sora nodded his head slowly but didn’t say anything. “That sounds pretty cool, not gonna lie.”

Caleb started to tap his foot apprehensively. “That’s risky though…” Alexis said. Caleb was nodding his head as she said it.

“That’s why it has to stay between us. We’ve never really sent students off of school grounds before but I think it would be ever so beneficial to do so. The five of you are some of the most impressive students I’ve seen in my time here so I would like to use you to test this out.”

“Why not use the sixth years though?” Ana asked.

“I know they would do well, but I want to use this starting in either second year,” he said looking at Ana. “Or in third year.” He looked at each of the others in the room. “Using sixth years won’t be beneficial for the improvement overall. Yes, it would help them improve and be even more prepared for the real world. But imagine if we start that type of training in your second or third year.”

Everyone thought about it for several moments without saying as much as a single word. “Thinking of everything we’ve been through in the two years we’ve been here,” Parker began to say. “That would be really helpful depending on what we were doing out there. I mean, it’s hard to really imagine what kind of things we could do out there since we’re at the top of a mountain and all.”

“Well, I would teach you a few new things that would help speed up your travels.”

“You mean,” Parker said with a big smile on his face. “You’d teach us how you just disappear without having a Space Imperial?” Parker sounded giddy as he asked like a toddler asking for a sucker.

Master Sora laughed, a real laugh, “Yes, I could teach you my little trick.” He knew it wasn’t actually a trick but the look on Parker’s face reminded him that although he’d been through some incredibly difficult and challenging times already, he was still just a kid.