Parker and Alexis both made for the middle of the ring immediately catching everyone off guard. They grabbed each other’s hands and a whirlwind whipped up around them growing every second. Lorena quickly sunk her legs into the ground to root herself. A simple breeze wasn’t going to take her out of the finals. Cesily wasn’t so lucky. She watched as Eliott directed a stream of water around his feet and froze himself to the ground.

There was nothing she could do to keep the ever-growing dome of air from pushing her out of the ring and out of the finals. After Cesily landed out of the ring, Parker and Alexis stopped their whirlwind.

“So that’s how it’s going to be?” Eliott asked rhetorically.

Parker grinned and blasted through the air at him. Eliott quickly turned the ground between them to ice making Parker slide a little but not lose control thanks to the wind.

As Parker went after Eliott, Alexis quickly attacked Lorena thinking about how she’d been able to take Zoey down in the first round. However, not being able to use her other Imperials made it a bit trickier. She sliced at her left and right as she ran forward. The air cut thin lines through her uniform leaving slight traces of blood in their wake.

Parker rose off the ground and spun rapidly in spot whipping up a tornado that he intended to send directly at Eliott. As the tornado began making its way forward, Eliott scurried off in the opposite direction. Parker guided the tornado to follow him and ended up catching Lorena in the middle. She began whipping around out of control, unable to root herself to the ground.

After a moment of spinning through the air, the tornado spat her out into the wall of the field. The three remaining finalists stood still looking back and forth at each other.

“Well, this stinks,” Eliott said looking back and forth from Parker to Alexis. “Definitely at a bit of a disadvantage here, aren’t I?”

“Sorry,” Parker said with a hint of honesty. “Want us to go all out and use everything we’ve got?”

“If it were just one of you, sure. But I’m not dumb enough to take two Omnis on by myself.”

“That’s fair,” Alexis said. “Let’s get going then!” She sprinted forward and clapped her hands in front of her sending a wave of air surging at his body. He sidestepped and countered with a chunk of ice. It just missed her and shattered across the ground. Parker watched in awe as Alexis moved with grace.

She stood still and began moving her arms in a scooping motion like she was pulling a large amount of snow together to make a snowman. Wind picked up and started to pull Eliott towards her. Parker saw what she couldn’t though. Eliott was using the water from the broken chunk of ice on the ground to form icicles that aimed at Alexis’s back. Before he could use them though, Parker sliced each one into small bits using his Imperial.

It was just enough to distract Eliott from keeping his feet firmly planted. The air lifted him up moving faster and faster toward Alexis. Before they collided with one another, Alexis stepped out of the way as Eliott soared through the air. The only thing standing between him and being sent out of the ring was Parker. He could see on Eliott’s face that he was glad there was at least a hope he wouldn’t sore too far. But in a split second Parker whipped his hand from right to left and sent Eliott rocketing out of the ring.

“Well, let’s see how this goes,” Alexis said with a big smile on her face. “Don’t go easy on me. Give me everything you’ve got.” They both knew that it was no holds bar at this point. Anything was fair game.

“Boo,” Parker whispered in her ear as he appeared out of thin air. It hadn’t even been a second. She jumped and turned but not before he could blast her with air hard enough to send her to the ceiling but she was able to control herself from hitting the ground.

The crowd could be heard from above cheering and gasping as they each attacked the other with all of their Imperials. At times, they couldn’t even been seen by the crowd after disappearing into a separate space and fighting for a time and then reappearing.

The grass in the ring was nonexistent after being torn up from their Earth Imperials and burned away with fire. The ring of water was nearly empty after only a few minutes of fighting. Between being used as a whip or turned into icicles to launch at one another there was barely enough to make a worthwhile attack.

Alexis had flown up in the air several feet and was launching blast after blast of air trying to push Parker out of the ring. He grounded himself by making the ground lock around his feet. Any air attack she threw at him wouldn’t even make him budge. She realized after several blasts that he wasn’t moving so she lowered herself to the ground.

In the moment it took for her to land Parker used the opportunity to shoot a barrage of icicles at Alexis catching her off guard. They cut through her uniform and he could see the cuts they had made on her arms and legs as well. Little bits of blood trickled out of the cuts and stained her clothes.

“Ah! I’m so sorry Alexis! I didn’t mean to hurt you like that!” He said this as he ran to her with his defenses down. She recognized the opening and attacked with all of her might. A rock raised out of the ground in front of her the size of a large box. It happened so quickly that Parker didn’t know what was happening. Alexis had jumped in place and spun as hard as she could, kicking the rock with everything she had. It rocketed at Parker, colliding with his chest and sending him into the sidewall of the field. He slid down, landing in the moat unconscious.

Alexis sprinted forward screaming her apologies as she went. The masters rushed over and helped him up as he started to come to. They announced Alexis as the third year winner and then moved Parker to the Medical Ward to have Madame Sasaki check up on him and make sure everything was okay.

The next few days flew by as the rest of the tournament was finished. Camille Rogers from The House of Gia had won the fourth year tournament. Parker couldn’t believe the way she used the ground to help her win. He wondered when he’d be able to use his Earth Imperial the way she had. Lena Mettler from The House of Kenna won the fifth year tournament and Marianna Spiros won for the sixth years. Master Keegan couldn’t have been more proud of his students.

The day after the tournament ended, everyone was enjoying a nice, low stress breakfast. Master Sora walked up to Parker as he was in the middle of a conversation with Caleb and tapped him on the shoulder. “May I speak with you for a moment?” Parker still thought it was funny how he always asked for permission instead of just telling him they needed to talk, although he did appreciate it as well.

“Of course. Where at?” Master Sora just motioned for him to follow. They made their way out of The Regale as lots of heads turned and gave them weird looks. Parker couldn’t decide if everyone thought he was in trouble or if they thought Master Sora was playing favorites.

“How did you feel about the tournament?” Master Sora asked the question but didn’t show any emotion or acknowledgement that Parker was right next to him. He could have very well been asking the air in the corridor what it thought.

“I thought it went well. How about you?”

“Well, I would’ve loved to see more years come out victorious for us but I was proud of Alexis.” Parker noticed that he didn’t mention anything about him, whether or not it was intentional. It seemed like the master’s mind was off in another world.

“Yeah, she did do a good job,” Parker responded.

“You need to be careful.”

Parker turned his head and looked at Master Sora confused. “What do you mean? Careful of what?”

“I’m talking about what happened in your duel. What would happen in the real world if you panicked because Alexis got hurt?”

Parker thought he had an idea where Master Sora was going with this but he hadn’t expected that response.

“I understand that you have feelings for her. However, if you get distracted so easily, either you or someone else with you could get injured as well.” The master stopped walking and turned his gaze to Parker to gauge his reaction.

“What would hurt one of us in the real world?” Parker didn’t understand where all of this was coming from.

“Anything could hurt you. Imagine if a regular person saw you light a candle using only your hand. They could do anything. Their minds are not used to seeing such things. You have to think about what the people around you will think if you let slip the powers that you have.”

Master Sora started to walk again and Parker followed after a moment. It felt like he was talking from some experience that had gone horribly wrong for him. He wanted to know what was causing this but was afraid to ask at the same time.

They arrived at the master’s chambers and they took a seat across the desk from one another. “I have two things we need to discuss.”

“And I have a question I need to ask,” Parker blurted before he could continue with what was on his mind. “Why are you talking like I’m going to get us killed or something?”

Master Sora looked at him for a moment without saying anything. “We’re about to send you and the others on your quest or mission or whatever you want to call it.” Parker’s eyes widened with realization that he’d forgotten all about that. “And after your match today it worries me to send you out there. You have to be completely focused and even if something happens to someone in your group, you can’t budge or something else bad may happen.”

“I understand…” Parker responded apologetically. “Sorry that I gave you doubts…” Parker felt guilty for several reasons now. Hurting Alexis, keeping Hailee’s father a secret from her and now for getting distracted from hurting Alexis.

“So, the first thing is that we are about to send the groups out. The second is that before we send you, we would like to test your core. We’ve checked the core of another student but Madame Sasaki believes that the core of an Omni is going to be different than that of the typical Imperial.”

“You want to test my core?” Parker asked, afraid to let Madame Sasaki open him up. Master Sora nodded his head. “Why my core?”

“We felt out of the four of you, you’d be the most likely to let us.”

He thought about Alexis, Hailee and Caleb and figured that Master Sora was correct. “All right,” Parker said, not wanting to make his friends do it. “How long will it take?”

“It’ll be over before you know it.” They left the master’s chambers and made their way to the Medical Ward. Madame Sasaki was waiting for them there.

She smiled and said, “So I take it he agreed?” Master Sora nodded his head and guided Parker to a cot near the back of the room. Madame Sasaki walked up with a tray in her hand and then pulled the curtain around them to give them some privacy.

Master Sora gently placed his hand on Parker’s shoulder and pushed him into a lying position. “What’s it going to feel like?” Parker asked.

“You won’t feel anything,” Madame Sasaki said. Parker couldn’t figure out how it was possible that she could touch what made him an Imperial and he not feel it even a little. “Take a bite of this.” She held out a small block of something. Parker took it gingerly from her hand and gave it a suspicious once over.

He stared at it and slowly brought it to his lips. He took the smallest bite he could manage to figure out what it tasted like. It had no smell, so he was hoping that it wouldn’t have a taste either. When it touched his taste buds he couldn’t determine what the taste of it was and before he could think about it for another second, he blacked out.

His dreams raced the entire time he was asleep. It started off in his duel against Alexis. However, this time he didn’t apologize for cutting her and took the opportunity to blow her out of the ring. Then she was mad at him for hurting her and refused to talk to him ever again.

That dream blacked out and was replaced with an Aether match against some unknown house. The match wouldn’t end. The stands up above were emptying out because everyone needed to go about their lives. Parker was running across the field as a wave of every Imperial hit him at once.

The dream changed again and this time he was a third party to the moment that he and Alexis kissed. He watched himself, which had to be one of the weirdest things he’d done. However, he was glad to see that she wasn’t making any faces. Or, more importantly, that he wasn’t making any weird faces.

The image of the two of them kissing faded out and was replaced with him sitting at a table with Lara. She reached across the table and grabbed his hand. He jerked back and jumped to a standing position.

“What are you doing here?” he yelled.

“We need to talk.”

“Wait, is this real? Or are you actually a dream?” Parker couldn’t decide if he was dreaming that she needed to talk to him or if he was having a dream and she’d burst in without an invitation like she had before.

“This is real. You were having a dream about you and that small blonde girl you’re so fond of. So I ended it and interjected myself.”

“Man… I really wish you’d stop doing that.”

Lara gave a sinister grin. “Were you enjoying that last little dream?”

“What?” his voice raised in pitch as he said it. “No, that’s not it!” he said defensively. “I’d just rather talk to you in the waking world. I’m defenseless here.”

“Well, I don’t have to worry about the masters interfering in here so suck it up.” She stood up so she could look him in the eye. “Warwick is planning something. I don’t know what though. He somehow keeps giving me the slip when I try to follow him. But he keeps leaving the castle.” Parker couldn’t believe what she was saying. How could he just disappear without anyone noticing?

“Wait, how does he give you the slip? You can literally do like anything. I mean, you teleported me to Norway for heaven’s sake!”

“That’s what has me worried. He must know that I’m spying on him. He’s using his Earth Imperial to escape from here quicker than I can keep up. My Earth Imperial is my weakest. And on top of that, he’s somehow masking his core.” Parker made a mental note of that for later to let everyone know that she does, indeed, have a weakness.

Parker’s eyes bolted open as Master Sora shook his shoulders waking him up. He blinked several times letting his eyes adjust to the bright light that was over his head. “Is everything okay?”

“Yes, everything is fine.” Madame Sasaki was looking in his eyes to make sure the he was okay.

“How long was I out?”

Master Sora took a seat in the chair by his bed. “Only about an hour but it was a very successful hour. She successfully removed your core and made many observations about it.”

“And? What’s it like?”

“Well, it’s hard to explain. Picture like a small orb of light that just appears from your chest.”

“What color is it?” Parker was beyond dying to know everything. He wished that he could’ve been awake for the procedure.

Madame Sasaki interrupted Master Sora. “Don’t worry about any of that. Just know that you were a lot of help. We learned that the core of an Omni is different than a regular Imperial’s. Other than that, there’s nothing else you need to know right now. And honestly, there isn’t much more to even say about it anyways. So, go ahead and head back to your classes for the day.

Nothing else was said as they ushered him out of the Medical Ward. He was slightly confused as to why they wouldn’t talk to him about it anymore but pushed that out of his mind as he focused on finding the others to tell them about it.

He caught up to them as they were going from their Air/Fire class to lunch. Which was perfect timing for him because he was starving. He sat down with them and devoured three Element Bars. He’d never eaten more than two before and he could tell right away that the third was probably a bad idea. Parker filled them in on everything, including his dreams. However, he made sure to leave the dream about him and Alexis out.

“I can’t believe you just let them do that to you…” Hailee said placing her hands over her chest. “It seems so... intrusive!”

“I was asleep, so it didn’t feel like anything. And I mean they put it back in, so no harm, no foul.”

“Still,” Hailee said. Parker didn’t feel the need to mention that he did it so none of them would have to.

Parker couldn’t decide exactly what Alexis thought about all of it but after a moment she spoke up. “What did Lara mean by saying Hailee’s dad kept masking his core?”

“I really don’t know. That didn’t make any sense to me…”

They finished eating their food and began making their way to their Omni class. Ana walked with them but mentioned that she was going to go study during that time and broke off from the group.

Caleb led the group to the cave for class. Parker was glad to see that Caleb seemed to be back to his normal self, or at least as close as he could get. If you didn’t know that he could only see out of one eye you would never even know that anything happened to him. He worked harder than anyone else and it showed in what he was able to accomplish.