"I can't believe that he has no memory of what he did." Alexis said flabbergasted that he could attack someone, almost kill them, and have no memory of it.

"I mean, there's nothing we can do about it…" Caleb began to say when he was cut off.

"I say we beat it out of him," Alexis grumbled. "He deserves it after what he did." She scowled and crossed her arms over her chest.

"We can't beat it out of him Alexis," Parker said. "Don't get me wrong, I absolutely would love to after what he did to Zoey, but I don't think it will actually help anything."

They flew down from the roof and landed on the balcony to their common room. When they walked in, students were sitting around working on various assignments from their classes. The faces on the upperclassmen showed how stressed they were with their work, making them a little nervous about what was expected of them as they moved through their years at the school.

Dropping through the floor and landing in the corridor always made Parker's heart race a little. His mind always jumps back to the first time he went through it, meaning that he belonged in The House of Erion.

"Do you think his memories will ever come back to him?" Alexis asked.

"Maybe, but who knows how long that will be and the longer it takes the closer Lara will be to completing whatever it is she has planned." They could hear the panic in Caleb's voice as he talked. Every time Lara came up he became skittish and nervous as though talking about her would summon her to them. "And the fact that she hasn't shown her face for quite some time makes me more nervous than if she decided to pop up once a week."

"I know what you mean, but there's still nothing we can do besides keep training and improving ourselves." Parker hated not being able to do anything. He figured that Lara should have shown up again since Colton returned. She'd told him that he should be able to figure out what she was up to once everyone woke up. "Do you think the others are going to wake up soon? You know, since Colton came back."

"Hopefully," Caleb and Alexis said at the same time.

They walked into the dining hall as others filed in and out with them. Finding a spot at their usual table with Hailee and Ana. The sun shined brightly outside as the evening drew to a close. At the front of the room, all the masters sat at the head table having conversations in their normal manner.

"How's it going?" Hailee asked as the three of them sat down. Alexis just glared at her as she took her seat. "Not good I take it then…"

"We're just trying to figure out this whole Colton situation," Caleb added trying to make Alexis seem less rude than she was being.

"I think I'm going to go check on him in the Medical Ward after I finish eating," Parker said.

"You can, I've got too much homework to focus on to spend my time going and seeing that jerk." Parker held a laugh in as Alexis spoke knowing that it wouldn't help anything out.

They all ate their dinner in near silence. Once Parker finished his food and stood up he offered one last time for them to join him but no one responded. He began leaving the dining hall by himself. As he rounded the corner into the corridor a hand tapped him on the shoulder. Whipping around to see who it was, fear flooded through his body.

"Hello. Parker Gray." Lara looked him in the eye, watching fear wash through him as he realized what was happening.

"But…" He looked around and saw everyone moving around them as though they weren't even there. "Why is nobody doing anything about this?" He yelled out to get everyone's attention, but nobody responded.

"Don't strain yourself boy. They can't hear you where we are." Parker stared at her confused, ignoring the fact that he knew even though he could see them they were in two completely different spaces. "We need to ta…"

"What do you want with us?" Parker interrupted with a scream. "What did we ever do to you to make you target us?" He turned red the more he yelled, getting heated by the very presence of Lara.

"You? Nothing. I've focused on you because of the promise you hold. The capabilities you can reach if you train hard enough. Being born an Imp is an amazing thing. Then changing into an Omni, the only thing better than being an Imp. As for the others, I'm sure you can guess."

Parker's blood felt like it was going to boil. "What did you call me?"

Lara laughed a little. "Why, you've never been called an Imp before?" He shook his head, still clueless to what she was talking about. "It means that you were born of a different Imperial than your family. And you come from a particularly strong family."

"You know my family?"

Lara stared into Parker's eyes as she spoke. "I was a sixth year here when your parents were first years. We didn't talk or interact much but I heard the masters talk about two new students to the school who were particularly strong. Then to go and have an Imp on top of it all. You were born to be very powerful."

"I was born…" Parker mouthed. "To be powerful…" The way he said it sounded as though he refused to believe it.

"Yes. Very. Now it's time you do something with it."

"What do you mean do something with it? I'm a partial mess with my Imperials. I can barely use fire and I can't even use earth yet."

"They will come in due time, for now, you need to check on those students." With that, she disappeared in the blink of an eye. Parker was standing in the corridor as other students stared at him like he was crazy, just standing in the middle of the corridor.

He made his way to the Medical Ward by himself. Everything Lara said ran through his mind. How was it that he was born to be extremely powerful and here he is, relearning how to do some of the fundamentals of being an Imperial.

When Parker made his way through the Medical Ward doors he couldn't believe what he was seeing. Madame Sasaki was practically running from bed to bed as all of the unconscious students began waking up. "What's going on?"

"I don't have time right now Parker, come back later." Madame Sasaki practically yelled as she ran from bed to bed. He turned around and left the room figuring that he was only going to be a hindrance to her.

The corridors were near empty as he made his way back to The Regale. "Let's give it a try…" When no one could see him, he vanished from sight. Everyone from the corridor vanished from his sight as well. He began making his way toward the dining hall thinking about how much quicker he'll move in his own space.

Parker couldn't help but wonder how it was that Lara was able to take them to a separate space but still be able to see what was going on in the real world. He focused all of this thoughts on being able to see others around him. Master Sora had talked about how a lot of the time for their Imperials to work the way they wanted it came from a great desire. Sadly, anything he tried didn't seem to work for him.

When he made it to the dining hall he stepped next to the wall before he reappeared, hoping that no one was standing there. He popped up right next to Marianna as she was leaving the dining hall.

Royal Road is the home of this novel. Visit there to read the original and support the author.

She screamed at the sudden appearance of someone next to her. "What the heck?" she yelled at Parker.

"Sorry! I was hoping no one would be right here." She started to walk away, seething with anger. "Wait! I need to tell you something!"

"What?" Marianna snapped in return.

"It's Riley…" Marianna's heart skipped a beat. "She's awake." Marianna didn't say anything and took off in a dead sprint toward the Medical Ward.

He sat down at their table just as everyone was finishing up their meals. No one said anything to him or asked why he was back already. Parker looked from Alexis to Caleb, then to Hailee and finally Ana. "They're up."

Alexis looked at him confused with what he said being given no context. "What are you talking about?"

"They're up. All of them. They've woken up." All four of his friends stood up to rush to the Medical Ward. "Wait, Madame Sasaki told us to come back later. She's too busy right now and we'd just be in her way." All four of them sat in unison.

"How are we supposed to not just go and see them right away?" Alexis asked slightly exasperated.

"I don't know but we don't really have a choice."

"When can we go?" Caleb asked.

"She just told me later." They sat for a moment longer before getting up from the table to leave.

Alexis led the group out of the hall into the corridor. Once everyone was out of the dining hall she stopped and turned around. "I say we go anyways. We can just lie and say that you didn't tell us."

Parker looked at her slightly shocked and proud at the same time. None of them were much for breaking the rules but he liked to see that she had a side to her that he didn't really know yet. He looked at Caleb and mumbled, "I think we're having a bad influence on her." Caleb laughed in return but didn't say anything.

"Why are you looking at me like that?" she scowled at Parker as she said it.

"No reason…" he lied.

"What?"

"I just like knowing that I don't completely know you yet." Her face turned scarlet and she turned to make her way to the Medical Ward without anyone else's approval of her plan.

When they approached the doors Parker grabbed her by the wrist. She stopped and turned to see which of the group it was. "What? I'm just going to poke my head in and see what's happening."

"So you're not going to go in and disrupt whatever Madame Sasaki is doing?" Hailee asked.

"No, not yet at least. I figure I can at least see what she's doing first." Alexis pushed on the door slightly trying to make as little noise as humanly possible. She peered through the crack between the two doors and saw Madame Sasaki and Master Sora standing right there at the first bed. They were talking in hushed tones but were close enough to the door to be eavesdropped on.

"They're missing, Thelonius."

"What are you talking about Ayano? They're all here, finally awake!" He sounded utterly confused by what she was saying. He'd been ecstatic to hear that the students had woken up finally but then to have Madame Sasaki speak nonsense to him perturbed him.

"The kids aren't missing! Their cores are!" Master Sora didn't respond but started to turn his body at the sound of a noise behind him.

Alexis backed from the door and ushered for everyone to move away. Once they rounded the corner in a rush Caleb spoke.

"What happened? What'd you see?"

"It's not what I saw. It's what I heard. Master Sora was talking to Madame Sasaki, and she talked about how they were missing." Shocked expressions ripped across everyone's faces.

"What do you mean they're gone? All of our classmates disappeared?" Hailee started to freak out before Alexis could clear up what she meant.

"Hailee, calm down. They aren't physically missing. She mentioned something about how their cores were missing." Now everyone was staring at her, lost.

"What's a core?" Ana asked figuring it was just something that she hadn't learned about yet and everyone just forgot to mention it. She quickly found out they were just as confused as she was.

"Does anyone know what a core is?" Alexis asked. Everyone turned to look at Hailee figuring she'd be the most likely one to know what a core was being the oldest of all of them. Everyone shook their heads no.

-----

A week passed and they spent most of their free time in the library trying to learn what a core was. Madame Dubois kept trying to help them find out but they refused to tell her what they were looking for. They didn't want to admit they'd eavesdropped on Master Sora and Madame Sasaki.

"I can't believe that we haven't found anything yet." The frustration was growing in all of them. "Should we start asking some of the upperclassmen? Like not giving any context or anything just ask what a core is?"

"But without context how will we know if they're talking about the same type of core that we're looking for?" Alexis didn't want to poke holes in his suggestion but knew that it wouldn't be overly beneficial to ask around.

"She's right," Ana said. "For example, we all have what's called a core. It's the center of your body. That's called your core because it's your center that helps with a lot of different things. And I'm sure that they haven't lost that, so it'll be hard to know whether or not we get the right definition we're looking for."

They dove back into the books. After a while, they spread out to look in different sections of the library. Parker was sitting at a table next to a stack of books as tall as him. He felt like his eyes were going to fall out of his head if he looked in the books any longer. Standing up to stretch, he reached his arms out and closed his eyes. When he finished, he opened his eyes and there was a familiar, unwelcomed face sitting across from him at the table.

"What are you doing here?" Parker asked through gritted teeth.

"Oh, don't be like that," Lara said in a silvery voice.

"Don't be like what? Upset that you attacked more students? Upset that they're somehow missing their cores, whatever that is?" Parker was trying to keep his voice quiet but couldn't control himself, not in the presence of her.

Lara didn't say anything at first, shocked by what Parker had said. "You clearly don't understand, maybe you never will. I think when it comes to light, you're going to apologize in the end."

Parker couldn't stop himself. "Apologize?" he yelled. "Apologize to you?" He figured at this level his friends would come running to him or at the very least Madame Dubois would show up to hush him. "I'll never apologize to you, for anything. Not after what you did to us."

"I didn't do anything to you, at least not on purpose. If anything, I've only made you stronger than you already were. Like I said before, you were born to be extremely powerful and now you only have the ability to be even stronger than that."

"I don't care what you think it did for me. You attacked us. How can you possibly defend yourself and have the audacity to say I'll apologize to you?" At this point Parker was yelling at the top of his lungs at her. She didn't budge or show the slightest hint of nerves coursing through her. "You attacked children. Not only that, but you stole the ability to control eight kids' Imperials. They'll never be able to use their Imperial again! So tell me again how I'm supposed to apologize to you?"

A smile creeped across her face as he spoke. "When the time comes, you'll understand." She vanished into thin air.

Parker was breathing heavier than he ever had. His chest heaved up and down as he tried to calm himself. After a moment Alexis showed up to his table ready to start explaining something she'd found when she noticed how upset he was. She could see how bothered he was, it was written all over his body.

"What's wrong?" she said in a shaky voice.

"You didn't hear me?" She shook her head. "I was yelling, how could you not hear that?"

"There was no yelling in here," Caleb said as he walked up from behind a shelf.

"Lara was here." He said it and realized that he hadn't told them that she'd shown up to him a week ago as well but figured it'd be easier to not bring that up.

"She… what?" Caleb said panicking.

"She showed up to tell me that when everything was cleared up I'd be apologizing to her." Alexis audibly laughed.

"Why in the world would we ever apologize to that creten? She's a monster!" As she said it she made eye contact with Hailee as she appeared. Hailee knew who Alexis was talking about. There was only one person that got Alexis this heated.

"What happened?" Hailee asked, over the fact that her mom was who she was at this point. She knew that things weren't going to change.

They went and found Ana so that Parker could fill them in on everything that Lara had said. She was just as surprised as everyone when Parker said that she'd shown up. After the explanation of how he was supposed to be sorry they started to make their way back to the common room for the night.

On their way they ran into Eliott in the corridor outside of the library. "Finally!" he blurted as he saw them.

"Finally?" Parker asked.

"I've been looking everywhere. Clay mentioned that he saw you guys in the library studying really hard." They were glad to hear it looked like they were studying instead of focused on non-school related stuff.

"Why were you looking for us?" Caleb asked.

"I just heard from Master Highland that they're interrogating Colton again about the attacks." Everyone stared at him confused.

"Who's Master Highland?" Ana finally asked after she saw no one else was going to.

"Oh, she's our second Master. Like yours’s Master Allgood." They all made faces that showed they clearly had never even thought about the other houses having a second master as well. Parker was a little surprised that Hailee didn't know about that being older than they were.

"Do you know why they're interrogating him again?" Alexis asked.

"No, she just mentioned that he was being talked to by each of the headmasters again."

"Good. I'm glad." Alexis said. "I think they're going too easy on him and that's why he's acting like he doesn't remember anything."

Parker responded, hopeful as he said it. "Well, maybe this time around they'll figure something else out that we don't already know."