It was two days until the new first years were to arrive. The masters had left two weeks before in order to go out and recruit. They were due back soon, which meant the school year was about to start up. Parker was both parts excited and terrified of his second year.

The other students had talked about it becoming significantly more difficult than their first year. Parker was making his way down to the dining hall when Caleb caught up to him and tapped him on the shoulder. "Hey, are you excited for tomorrow?"

Parker didn't acknowledge that Caleb was there he simply kept walking. "Hey, Parker, did you hear me?"

"I heard you. But I didn't have a response so I didn't say anything."

Caleb stopped walking and just stared at him as he kept walking. "Wake up on the wrong side of the bed or something?" he called after him. Caleb could tell this caught Parker's attention because he stopped and turned around.

"You wanna know what side of the bed I woke up on this morning?" Parker said this getting louder and puffing his chest out as he confronted Caleb. "I woke up this morning realizing that I'm moving into my second year and I can't even control a single Imperial smoothly. I hurt my only real friends at this school." Caleb's eyes fell to the floor. "Not only that, but Alexis still won't even look me in the eye. Every time I see her or try to say hi, she scurries away like I'm a gross spider or something."

He noticed that Caleb had withdrawn and stopped his verbal assault. This took him right back to where they were a year ago. Caleb had gotten so comfortable around Parker that he forgot how withdrawn Caleb was when they'd arrived at the school. "Caleb, I'm sorry I yelled at you."

"It wasn't the yelling Parker. It's what you said, not how you said it."

"What do you mean? All I said was how I hurt Alexis and Hailee because I can't control my stupid Imperials." As he said it, his temperature began rising. Just thinking about it made his blood pressure increase.

"No, Parker. You said, 'I hurt my only real friends at this school.' So am I not a real friend anymore or something, because you haven't hurt me. You've always been under control around me. Well except for now that is." He pointed to Parker's hands that were now on fire.

Parker began to panic, not sure how to turn it off still. He couldn't keep control of it no matter what he tried. He noticed a snake of water surround his hands as Caleb maneuvered the water through the flames. The flames were extinguished almost as quickly as they had appeared.

Hailee popped up beside them. "What just happened? The two of you just appeared out of nowhere and Parker's hands were engulfed in flames."

They both turned and looked at her confused. "What do you mean?" Parker asked.

"Parker and I were arguing a little and he got mad about…" he caught Parker's look. “…something and his hands lit up. Then I doused them in water."

"We were just on our way to the dining hall."

Hailee stared at them not sure what to think. "Oh dear… we need to talk to the masters."

"Hailee, they're not here right now. Remember they had to journey to recruit the new first years. They're supposed to be back tomorrow."

"Yeah, that's what got Parker so heated."

"The masters being gone made you mad?" she said looking at Parker.

"No, it's not that they're gone. I just… I don't want to talk about it."

Haile didn't press any further. She knew if he wanted to tell her about it he would when he was ready.

They made their way to the dining hall and found an empty table to sit at. While they were talking and eating their breakfast, Alexis walked in. Parker noticed her immediately and then watched as she walked past their table without looking at it for even a second.

He dropped his head and Hailee saw him take a deep breath. "Parker? What's going on? Something is obviously bothering you." She hadn't seen Alexis walk by them but when she looked around to see what caused Parker to look so defeated she saw Alexis taking a seat with The House of Erion Aether team. "Oh… so that's what it is…" Hailee didn't say anything else, knowing that it wouldn't help the situation any.

Parker and Caleb made their way out of the front of the castle and sat down on the bridge overlooking the waterfall. They didn't say anything; they knew what each other were thinking already.

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Time seemed to just drag on as they waited for the masters to return so they could discuss what had happened that morning. The sun made its way high into the sky while they sat in silence. Finally, their craving for lunch brought some, but not much, conversation.

"Do you wanna go in and get some lunch?" Caleb asked.

Parker shrugged and said, "Sure." They didn't run into anyone on their way back inside but when they turned the corner into the dining all they noticed something was wrong. No one was there.

"Huh…?" Caleb questioned. "Where is everyone?"

Parker looked around just as confused as Caleb was. "I don't know… Should we go look around?"

Caleb nodded his head and turned around to go back out into the corridor. As soon as they left the dining hall the corridor was packed with kids. The other students were walking in and out of the dining hall. Parker turned around again and looked back, the dining hall was crammed with students. There weren't very many seats left open at this point.

"Caleb…" Parker said while shaking his shoulder. "What in the world is happening?"

Caleb shook his head. "I have no clue but we really need the masters to get back, like now."

Caleb helped Parker into the common room and then made his way up. They decided to skip their lunch for the time being. "We need to make our way to the roof so we can talk privately."

As Parker was sent to the roof, Caleb made his way up as well. They didn't see Hailee step out onto the balcony after them.

"Parker, is that you doing it?" Caleb asked.

"Doing what?" Parker snapped.

"Something is causing us to go to a different space and I'm not doing anything, so it has to be you."

"I'm not doing anything!"

"Were you mad when we came into the school?"

Parker gritted his teeth. There hadn't been a moment since he burned Alexis that he wasn't mad. All he could focus on was how he kept messing up and causing trouble. As his anger rushed through him, his body loosened and he took deep breaths. Caleb noticed the change in his body language.

"Parker, what's wrong?"

"Why can't I control my Imperials Caleb? What's wrong with me?" Parker choked the words out. It sounded as though he were about to cry, which made Caleb panic a little. He had no clue what to do if someone was crying around him.

Caleb talked Parker down from the metaphorical ledge he was standing on. They sat down on the roof and Caleb told him about all of the things he went through at the beginning of the previous year.

As Parker listened to Caleb, he realized that they weren't too different. He remembered how withdrawn he was a year ago and realized that it was because of how he felt about himself not belonging to any specific house. Parker at least had a house he belonged to specifically; at least he used to have one. He no longer felt that he belonged with The House of Erion now that he couldn't control his Air Imperial.

"But Caleb, no one else looked at you like you were a freak. There's still no one that knows you're an Omni. Everyone knows that I am. I wish it were like it used to be where Omnis could just be open about it and no one cared. Now everyone is just afraid of me."

"Parker, I don't think they're afraid of you because you're an Omni." Parker lifted his head with a confused look on his face.

"What do you mean? Why else would they be afraid of me?"

"I think it's just because all they've seen is the one accident that happened. They haven't seen you putting in hours and hours of practice to try to control it."

Parker heard what Caleb was saying but didn't want to agree with him. His self-esteem had hit rock bottom and he couldn't figure out how to pull himself out of the mental valley he was in.

"How am I supposed to get everyone to look at me normally again?"

"We need to show them that you can control your Imperials. That will show them there's nothing to worry about. And if that works out, I may even show that I'm an Omni as well. Then you won't be alone."

"But I can't control my Imperials!"

"Don't worry, I'm going to do everything I can to help you." As Caleb said this, he stood up and motioned for Parker to do the same. They spent the rest of the day and night working. By the time that they crawled into bed, they were lucky to have made it back. They'd worked so hard that Caleb had almost fallen asleep on the roof.

-----

The sun beamed through the windows in their room waking everyone up. It was finally the day that the masters were supposed to return with all of the new first years. Caleb was overly excited for it but Parker didn't show much emotion. He sat in his bed staring out of the wind with a stoic expression etched across his face.

"How are you not excited for this?" Caleb said. "We're finally not going to be low man on the totem pole!"

"Maybe for you, but I might as well go join them in class."

"What are you talking about? You did such a good job yesterday! You were able to create the ball of air that we're supposed to learn how to ride. That's amazing, I still struggle a little with that one!" Parker looked at him with a look that told Caleb not to pity him.

"I need to be able to fly again and control what Imperial comes out of me. Otherwise I'm off of the Aether team." Caleb had forgotten all about the Aether team and Parker was right, he couldn't be on the team if he couldn't control which Imperial came from him.

"We just need to get your fire under control. That's the only other Imperial that you've controlled so far, we should be able to figure that one out!" Parker hadn't thought about that. Caleb was right; the only Imperial causing him trouble was fire. None of the other Imperials had even changed for him. He can't do anything with them now nor had he ever been able to. This helped lift his spirits quite a bit.

They made their way down to the dining hall again. Taking their usual seat with Hailee, Parker noticed that the masters were all sitting at the head table. "Hey! Look, they're back!" Hailee didn't acknowledge what Parker had just said she simply continued to eat her breakfast.

Parker quickly ran to the head table to talk to Master Sora. "Master! You're back! We need to tell you about something that happened while you were away."

Master Sora stared at Parker but didn't say anything. Parker could tell that there was something taking Master Sora's focus as he tried to talk to him. He turned to look around the dining hall and then turned back. "Where are all of the first years?"

Master Sora dropped his gaze and said, "There are none."