The following week and a half flew by for everyone. Ana had become a regular in their group fitting in as though she'd known them for a whole year. They'd spent a fair amount of time together but most of their free time was spent with their groups from Combining the Imperials. Their presentations had approached extremely fast; along with Ana's first Aether match which was on the same evening.
Parker remembered last year when he had experienced the stress of having their first exams at the same time as their first match. He'd gone to see a couple of their practices to see how the team was doing. He and Alexis watched from above and noticed that they'd changed positions a little. Parker figured it was probably to better suit the newcomers; even though they hadn't done that for them.
"So how do you think they're going to do tomorrow?" Parker asked Alexis.
"Based on what they've done tonight I'd say they have a good chance. I'm really impressed with the way that Ana picked it up so quickly, especially considering that she'd never heard of it before."
Parker laughed. "What's so funny?" she asked.
"Think about it Alexis, that's exactly how we were last year."
"Fair point... I don't think we looked nearly as graceful as she does though."
"Touché." They both started laughing thinking back to their tryouts. "It should be interesting to watch Clay as a shooter this year and to see how Emma does as an attacker. Ana told me that she wasn't very graceful with the ball so they switched her with Clay, who if I remember correctly isn't too graceful himself. But maybe he's improved since last year."
"What do you think of Ana?" Alexis asked with a really low voice that had a hint of embarrassment to it.
"What do you mean?"
"Just... what do you think of her...?"
"She's super nice and funny... if that's what you're looking for."
"Okay..."
Parker seemed very confused about what just happened. He couldn't help but ask himself if Alexis was jealous of Ana. Maybe it was because they spent more time together due to being in the same group. He was pretty sure that Ana had a crush on Caleb though. She seemed to ask a lot about him and tried to talk to him any chance she could.
"Hey... do you think—" Parker began to say.
"What?" Alexis blurted cutting off his sentence. There was a hope in her voice that sounded like she was wanting Parker to say or ask something specific.
"Do you think that Caleb is ever going to take Eliott up on his offer to introduce him to Julie?"
Alexis deflated as he asked about Caleb. "Oh... I don't know. I'd like to think that he would, she seems super sweet and he seems to like her a lot... even though he knows next to nothing about her."
"I keep trying to convince him to do it but I can't get him to. Any clue why he won't?"
"Don't go spreading this rumor to anyone... but I think that he may have a few crushes going on—"
They spent the rest of the Aether practice watching and gossiping about how Caleb seemed to have a crush on Julie, Ana and Hailee. Alexis let it slip that Hailee had a very slight crush on Caleb but she didn't know how much Hailee was holding back. Apparently, ever since Ana showed up, Hailee had become much more withdrawn than usual. Parker had noticed it but didn't think much of it. When it was just the two of them there were never any problems or any real differences that he had noticed. However, whenever Caleb or Ana was around she did seem to quiet down a lot and withdraw.
The five of them were sitting in the dining hall enjoying their Element Bars. Ana still couldn't believe that her parents had been telling the truth about the Element Bars. "I don't understand how this can taste like whatever I'm craving at the time."
"Don't question it, you'll go mad. No one knows how they do it or even really who does it. Maybe we should try to figure that out some time..." Alexis suggested but no one acknowledged her idea.
"So, are you ready for your match tomorrow?" Caleb asked. Parker noticed that Caleb was always smiling when he was talking to Ana. Before Ana could respond to his question, Parker looked at Hailee who seemed like she couldn't care less what Ana had to say. Hailee stood up and walked out of the dining hall.
"Excuse me, I'll be right back." Parker stood up and walked after her. When he made it to the hall he caught a glimpse of her shoes as they disappeared up the stairwell. He ran over and saw her land on the eighth floor. "All right, you can do this! It's only eight floors." He spun in spot and whipped up a swirl of wind around him. He focused on his memory of when his parents dropped him off to attend Lancastre and he began to rise through the air. His eyes were squeezed tight as he rose. He was doing all he could to not lose focus of his memory. He peeped one eye open to see what floor he was at and he'd made it to the eighth. Leaning toward the landing a little, the swirl guided him to the edge and he landed. "Yes! I did it!"
Hailee was sitting on the steps staring at the wall. She'd completely ignored any sign of Parker's celebration.
"Hailee... are you okay?" he asked fully aware that she wasn't. He didn't even know why he asked the question it just came out before he could stop it.
"Of course I'm not okay!" she snapped.
"I know... is there anything I can do to help you?" She shook her head and sat in silence. He took a seat next to her on the steps. "I'm here for you if you need to talk."
"Is it something I did?" Parker was genuinely confused by her question.
"Something you did...?" he asked.
"Caleb doesn't talk to me anymore. He's barely said one word to me in the past two weeks—" Parker thought for a moment at what could've caused this and then it clicked. He'd apparently stopped talking to Hailee when Ana had arrived.
"Before she got here, he talked to me all the time. But now that's changed... I feel like I did something wrong," she said. Hailee wasn't crying but Parker felt like one wrong word and it might put her over the edge. So, instead, he put his arm around her and squeezed.
Alexis made her way up the stairs and saw Parker with his arm around someone with their head down. He saw the expression on her face that told him she was upset.
Hailee raised her head to say something to Parker and she saw Alexis on the stairs. Parker immediately saw the expression on Alexis's face when she saw Hailee upset next to him. She ran up the rest of the stairs and squeezed in between Parker and Hailee. Alexis wrapped both her arms around Hailee and squeezed as tight as she could.
"I've got this, you go back to the dining hall," Alexis whispered to Parker. He nodded and patted Alexis on the shoulder. Parker walked over to the low wall next to the opening in the staircase. He looked down and gulped, "If I can go up it, I can go down it."
Parker took a small leap over the wall and plummeted fast. The ground came very quickly from only eight floors up. At the last second he got a swirl of wind to kick up around him that softened his fall, not as much as he'd have liked but enough to not break his legs.
He made his way back to the table in The Regale and found Caleb and Ana talking. Ana turned to him as he sat and said, "Eliott stopped by while you were gone and said that we were going to have a last minute meeting in ten minutes out in the hall."
"Okay," Parker responded.
"Oh... that was ten minutes ago so we should probably go out there now."
"You go, I'll be there in a second. I want to talk to Caleb about something quick." She skipped out of the dining hall and Parker caught Caleb watching her leave. "Dude, what's up?" Parker asked in an accusing voice.
"Nothing—" he could tell that Caleb was confused.
"So... you have a little crush on Ana—" Parker said it in a teasing tone to try and make the mood a little lighter than it would've been if he flat out accused him.
"I mean... she's nice... and funny... and cute..." It was obvious from his words that he definitely had feelings for her.
"It's cool, I won't blab. Promise."
"Okay good. But can I ask why you're asking?"
Parker looked at him for a second before saying anything. He couldn't decide if he should bring it up or not. After a moment he decided it was for the best, Caleb should be aware that it's happening. "It's cool that you like her, no reason not to. But, did Hailee do something to make you mad?"
Caleb's eyes shot open wide. "No, of course not! Why would you ask that?"
"Did you not see how upset she was when she left here?" Caleb shook his head. He'd been too focused on Ana at dinner to notice what anyone else was doing. "She's upset because you don't talk to her anymore."
Caleb thought hard for a moment before responding to Parker. "I'm an idiot—"
"Well... I wasn't going to be the one to say it, but... if the shoe fits." Caleb glared at him for a moment.
"What can I do to fix this?"
"I would recommend going and apologizing to her, but that's just me."
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"I have to go meet with my group though—" Caleb said.
"Well then apologize immediately after that."
They both left the dining hall and made their way to their groups. Ana popped her head out of one of the empty rooms on the first floor and called for Parker.
Eliott threw a ball of water at Parker as soon as he came through the door. Just before it crashed into his chest Parker saw it. He caught it in a net made of air and quickly spun air around it so it would stay in the form of a ball.
"We go on tomorrow and we've still got nothing!" The nerves and anger in Eliott's voice were blatantly obvious.
Parker knew that he was right but at the moment he got an idea. "Hey, let's use what we just did—"
"What do you mean? I just threw a ball of water at you."
"Exactly. Ana and I can create a stream of air around the room as the three of you throw your Imperials at us. We'll catch them and stream them around the room. Ana do you think that you could handle that?"
She shrugged, "Only one way to find out..."
-----
The groups had finished up, all that was left was Parker and his group. The five of them made their way to their positions around the room. Everyone at their seats stared at them slightly confused. Each of their groups had stayed solely at the front of the room.
Parker stood by the door and turned the lights out. The room wasn't pitch dark due to the windows but it gave the room a nice feel for what they were going to do.
Cesily held a fireball in her hand that glowed brighter in the dim room. She tossed it high into the air and Parker snaked a stream of air around it causing it to move around the room as if caught in a current. She continued to heave fireball after fireball into the air while Parker caught all of them making them follow suit.
The students watched as a stream of fireballs moved throughout the desks. Eliott began tossing balls of water that glowed between the window light and firelight throughout the room. Ana caught it in the same manner as Parker. Eliott repeated what Cesily had done and after a moment there was now a stream of fireballs and balls of water moving throughout the room.
Parker was concentrating as hard as he could on controlling the air current and not accidentally crossing with Ana's. He noticed that the students didn't seem overly impressed with what they were doing. But before they could be booed off the "stage", Raelyn moved the ground under their feet creating small platforms for each of the group members.
They floated through the air on the small rocks that Raelyn was controlling. Parker realized before they finished that they hadn't actually combined any of the Imperials. They'd only used them next to one another.
Quickly, he got an idea to stream some of his air into the fireballs so they grew in size. After a moment there was a stream of basketball sized fireballs floating through the room. Ana saw this and followed suit without being told. She funneled air into the middle of the balls of water so they would grow in size without actually adding water to them.
Each of them saw a smile creep across Master Kingston's face when that happened. At the last moment before they finished, Ana got one more idea and she hoped that Parker would follow her lead.
She launched a ball of water directly at Cesily, fingers crossed in her mind that Cesily would do what she was hoping for. Right before it hit her, Cesily shot a searing hot streak of fire at it turning it into vapor. Ana quickly launched each ball of water at Cesily and she continued evaporating each one.
After Ana sent the second ball of water, Parker caught on to what she was doing. He sent the first fireball at Eliott who launched a ball of water at it to save himself. Eliott smiled as Parker shot fireball after fireball at him and he extinguished each of them.
Raelyn guided each her group mates to the front and sat them down gently. They took a bow and returned to their seats as the class clapped for them.
After the clapping had stopped Master Kingston took her spot at the front of the room again. "Parker, be a dear and turn the lights back on."
"Whoops! Sorry Master!" He ran to the door and flipped the switch so everyone could see clearly.
"Those were all fantastic presentations. Much, much better than day one, as it should be. I saw much better use of combinations rather than using the Imperials next to one another." As she said it, Parker let out a sigh of relief, glad that he'd caught it at the last second. "You will receive your grades during our next class, have a great evening and I hope to see everyone at the match tonight."
Everyone picked up their things and left the room. Parker and Ana waited for Alexis and Caleb to get into the corridor so they could hang out during their free time before lunch.
"That was awesome guys! How long have you been practicing that?" Alexis sounded extremely impressed by their presentation.
"We've been practicing for days!" Parker said with a grin on his face.
"Don't let him fool you Alexis. We only thought of it last night and we only practiced it once. It was really just a fluke, we got lucky is all." Alexis laughed as she said it and slapped Parker on the arm.
"So, Ana, are you ready for tonight?" Caleb asked.
"Yeah, I think so. We're working pretty well as a team. I think Clay feels really weird as a shooter though. He's not very graceful at it but he gets the job done."
"Hey, I've got to go study for the history exam," Parker interrupted.
"Do you need any help?" Alexis asked.
"I'm doing better than last year definitely. The history of the houses is way more interesting than the important people of the school."
Alexis stared at him for a moment wanting to call him dumb but restrained herself. "Parker, we talked a bunch last year about the houses that those important people were a part of..."
"Yeah I know... but we didn't talk about Aether champions and dueling champions and the actual history of each house. Heck, we only learned a lot about the Lancastre siblings because we did all that research. We barely touched on them in class. You'd think they would be the first ones we learned about! But anyways, yeah I probably still could use some help in it." They both left to sit on the bridge and study.
"How are you doing with your classes?" Caleb asked Ana.
"They're going fine. It's a little tough in history because I have to do a bunch of extra studying to catch up. But for Combining the Imperials and Air Imperial I'm doing fine. I can thank my parents for that, or I would've been in deep trouble."
Caleb laughed and realized, "If it wasn't for your parents training you before you got here you wouldn't be here at all. There's no way you would've found this place without your Air Imperial."
She shrugged, "Good point. I'm going to go study for the history exam though. I'll see you later!"
Caleb watched her go up the stairs to find a place to study. He was feeling really good about all of his exams for the day so he decided to take a little break and relax while he could.
-----
"Nailed it!" Parker yelled as they left their history final. "That's the first exam I've felt this good on!"
"Even better than your Air Imperial exam last year? Cause you aced that with flying colors." Alexis pointed this out making Parker think for a moment.
"Fine... that's the first written exam I've felt this good on!" She laughed at his correction.
"It's time to go watch the Aether match though. I can't wait to see how Ana and Emma do against a different house. I remember how much it changed, don't you?" He nodded and they made their way to the eleventh floor. This was the first time they had to watch their own team compete and neither of them liked the feeling it gave them.
They felt more confident about their Imperials but not confident enough to use them consistently for an undetermined amount of time. When they walked through the door on the eleventh floor the stands were filled with students. It looked like the whole school was in attendance. It was obviously though that the attendance had severely dropped with only one new first year student, who wasn't even in the stands that day.
Master Keegan walked out on the field and stood between Cassidy and Corrine. Parker remembered that The House of Gia was a tough first team to play. He'd wished their first match was against The House of Leith like his had been. He could see Master Keegan giving the brief rules for the new season. The players nodded and took their positions.
The whistle echoed through the floor and the players took off. Corrine passed the center line with the ball and was met immediately with a blast of air to the chest send her spiraling back to her side.
Clay ran through and scooped the ball up. Parker had hoped he'd get to see Clay use his feet but no such luck. Clay disappeared behind the center of the castle. This was Parker's least favorite thing about spectating. Since he wasn't in the action, he had no idea what was happening on the other side.
After a few moments of little movement from their view, Clay sprinted into the clearing where two chunks of ground flew at him from both directions. Ana and Emma appeared from behind the center column and blasted the chunks of ground at the goalie as Clay threw the ball. The first chunk of ground exploded against the wall. The second collided with their goalies chest knocking him back into the goal along with the ball that Clay had thrown.
The center of the castle glowed a blinding white light that Parker noticed Ana was not ready for. She turned her head quick and rubbed her eyes. Parker tapped Alexis on the leg and pointed to Ana and they bother started to laugh.
The ball returned to the middle and the whistle rang again. Cassidy passed the ball as fast as she could to Clay who scooped it up and threw it to Gwen. She ran forward across the center line where the ground started to move under her feet.
Ana noticed Gwen moving unnaturally and spun through the air aiming her hands at Gwen. Gwen began floating through the air with the ball in her hands. Ana guided her forward and then set her down in a way that she was able to break out in a sprint.
The blockers were thrown off by their tactic. Gwen dropped the ball to her feet and dribbled it toward the goal. As she approached, the blockers stood in her way of the goal. Gwen kicked the ball straight to her left. The blockers stared at her confused but saw Emma sprint forward and shoot a blast of air at the ball sending it at the goal.
Their goalie jumped in front of the ball and it bounced off of his chest. It rolled to one of their shooters who was promptly swept through the air by Ana. The wind was so strong it rolled their shooter and the ball straight into the goal. The castle lit up white again and the stands erupted in cheer.
The House of Gia turned the game around quickly scoring two back to back goals to tie the game. After their second goal they called for a brief intermission. Each team huddled up and discussed their plans.
"I hate not being a part of this. Watching from up here is awful! I miss it so much." Parker was whining to Alexis who felt the same way he did.
"Where's Hailee at?" Alexis asked just realizing that she wasn't there with them. She'd gone to all of their matches the previous year so they were shocked to not see her watching.
"I'm not sure. Maybe at an exam?"
"No, all exams are done before this so everyone can enjoy it."
"Hm... I'm not sure then. We'll have to find her after the match."
While they were talking about Hailee they'd taken their eye off of the match. They turned their heads back as The House of Erion students cheered at the glowing white column.
Master Keegan blew the whistle and Cassidy kicked the ball across the center line as hard as she could. Ana ran beside it and took out the blocker on her side. Emma must've have subdued her blocker because she never appeared.
Gwen caught up to the ball and kicked it with all her might into the goal. It was the fastest goal that most of them had ever seen.
"It's four to two now," Parker whispered. "Just one more like that and it's over!" As if to appease Parker's wishes, they did just that. It looked almost identical to the play they'd just run. He couldn't believe they pulled it off.
Parker and Alexis jumped up and down cheering and then they hugged for a brief second. Just as quick as it had happened, they pulled apart. Caleb laughed to himself when he saw it happen. "Let's go congratulate them!" Caleb led the way down to the field where they ran out to their team.
"Great job everyone!" Parker yelled.
"Man it's not the same out here without you!" Clay shouted. He caught Ana and Emma staring at him. "I mean, you two were great! Really! But, it was nice having another guy on the team! Right Finn?" Finn nodded.
"But like Clay said, you two did fantastic. Especially for your first time!"
"So, what'd you two think of playing against a different house? Totally different, isn't it?" Claire asked.
"Yeah, it's very different but I liked it! I can't wait for our next match. Who's it against?" Ana asked.
"The House of Kenna. Don't worry, we'll get you ready for it. They're really aggressive." Evelyn was trying not to worry them, but she had to be honest as well.
They all returned to their common room where they found Hailee sitting in front of the fire. She walked up to Caleb and whispered something in his ear. Parker watched them walk out to the balcony and disappear to the roof. He wanted to follow them up but figured if they'd wanted him there they would've asked him to join.
After several minutes of them being on the roof, Parker saw Caleb land hard on the balcony by himself. He ran in out of breath. "Where is she?" he asked.
"What do you mean?" Parker, Alexis and Ana were very confused.
"Hailee, where is she? She just—" he couldn't finished his sentence.
Alexis grabbed Caleb by the shoulders to try and calm him down. "What do you mean where's Hailee? She went to the roof with you. What happened?"
Caleb was panting heavily and said, "We were talking... and then she just... vanished..."