“Now what?” Caleb asked.

Master Sora was pacing around the fire muttering to himself. Everyone stared at him for several minutes waiting for him to give them at least a little guidance on what they should do next. “Obviously we can’t actually help her, right?”

They stared at him, scratching their heads. “Why are you asking us?” Alexis asked. “You’re the adult here.”

“Don’t cut yourselves short,” Master Sora said. “You all are nearly adults. I know we don’t know the exact date anymore, but I would assume the three of you are almost eighteen now.”

They looked back and forth at each other realizing that he was right. “I’d completely forgotten about birthdays. They seemed so insignificant compared to everything else that was going on.” Parker said. He couldn’t believe that he was almost eighteen.

“Still,” Alexis continued. “Why are you asking us? You’re the one with a life of experiences that can help us here.”

Master Sora laughed slightly. “Dear, my life experiences are filled mostly with teaching and being in a classroom. You’ve nearly had more experience in your eighteen years than I have. What you’ve been through, what you’ve overcome, it’s something that I feel I can barely compare myself with.”

He stopped and looked back and forth between all three of them. “Honestly, there are times that I think I need to come to the three of you for advice. You’ve handled everything so well. Thinking back to myself at your age, I could never have handled things the way you have.”

“But we couldn’t have done that without you,” Alexis said, trying to defend the master.

Master Sora’s gaze dropped. “I truly think the three of you, out of all the students, would’ve been just fine without us.”

Parker felt like there was something wrong with Master Sora. He’d never seen the master so down on himself. “Master, you brought us all together. Without you, we never would have even met each other. So, yes, you were crucial to our successes.”

“What do you three think that we should do next?”

“We need to stop Lara,” Caleb said hastily, like he’d been waiting for the second to say it. “She’s going to hurt more people in the name of Hailee and that can’t happen, even if it is Terra.”

Everyone stared at Caleb surprised by his words. They understood what he meant, but the fact that he wanted to stop her was shocking.

“What do you mean when you say ‘stop’ her?” Parker asked. He could tell from the look on Caleb’s face what he meant but he had to hear it for himself.

“You know exactly what I mean. As long as she’s around, no one is safe.”

Silence spread through the group. Everyone’s eyes were on the ground, no ideas on how to respond to what Caleb said. They knew he was right, but how could they justify killing her? Wouldn’t that make them as bad as her?

“Caleb, I understand where you’re coming from…” Alexis started.

“Then you should know that she needs to be stopped. No matter what.”

“I just don’t think that’s the right move. It will only lead to a major fight where any of us could wind up really hurt, or worse.” Alexis was trying her best to talk in a calming voice. “I think we should just try to keep our distance from her as best we can.”

Parker looked like he supported her thoughts, but everyone could tell that Caleb was about to play devil’s advocate. “What are we supposed to do in the meantime then? We were on our way to find her. Do we just abandon that now?”

“We keep practicing in case it comes down to having to fight her.” Alexis responded.

“Parker, what do you think?” Master Sora asked.

“I think I can stop all of this if I can figure out how to jump back far enough.” Alexis put her hand on his shoulder. “I’ll figure it out. I’ll fix everything.”

Master Sora sat down on a log in front of the fire. “We’ll figure out how to get you back far enough. We’re on the right track now.”

They brainstormed all night, figuring out everything they knew about Parker’s ability to jump in time. The sun broke the horizon, and everyone blinked in the bright light of the new day.

“Now, we figure out what you’re capable of doing,” Master Sora stated.

“You think we can just do it now?” Parker asked. “Just like that?”

“At this point, yes. I think we’ve narrowed it down and figured out what you need to focus on to jump. Now, the real question is what’s it going to take to extend the amount you jump.”

Parker looked at Alexis and blushed. He realized while they were brainstorming that each time he’d jumped back, he’d been thinking of her to some extent. They figured out that the more he cherished the memory, the further back he had jumped.

“Wait,” Alexis interrupted. “If he starts to practice this, doesn’t that mean we’ll lose him?”

Everyone went quiet for a moment, realizing that, in a way, Alexis was right. Parker would, for all intents and purposes, remain here, but his mind would travel back. What that did to his current body, what mind then occupied it, he didn’t know.

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“I don’t want to lose him,” Alexis whimpered. “We’ve lost enough already.”

Parker pulled her into a tight hug. “But if I accomplish this, all that loss, all the suffering we’ve done, should, for the most part, go away!” He was trying to be as optimistic as possible for her, but it was tough because he knew there was a chance that it wouldn’t work.

“It’s time we figure out what you can do,” Master Sora said. “Although, we only get to brainstorm right now. Once you go back, you’ll have to talk to the past versions of us and explain everything to them.”

Parker blinked a lot. “You’re right. How am I supposed to convince them I know what I’m talking about? What if I jump back so far that we don’t know I can even do that yet?”

They all sat and thought on that for several minutes. Master Sora was the first to speak up. “Well, you should remember everything. It’ll just be a matter of convincing past us about it and then you may have to demonstrate for them by jumping back very shortly. But even then, I don’t know quite how that’ll work, especially since it doesn’t seem like you have complete control over how far you jump back.”

“Well, it sounds like it’s decided on,” Caleb said. “You’ve gotta jump back.”

They all agreed, and Parker said he was going to prep and try to figure out what the perfect memory to do this with would be. He told everyone it could be a day or two before he was ready to jump back.

Master Sora decided that he would like to keep on the move during this time. Sitting around doing nothing was the last thing they wanted to do so they decided to make their way toward Lara’s offices. Every once in a while, Parker was able to sense Lara’s core, even if only for the briefest of moments.

After a day of travel, the weather was taking a turn for the worse, making Parker think back to the day in his basement before he went to Lancastre. The sky had turned so dark and Lara had appeared in his backyard. So much had happened since then that it was almost impossible to believe.

Lightning flashed across the sky, but no rain fell. Thunder boomed as Parker stared up into the dark clouds. “Is everything okay?” Alexis asking, appearing next to him, wrapping her arm around his and holding onto him.

“Yeah, just thinking back to before Lancastre.” The sky flashed like a strobe light. “Did you see that?” Parker asked.

“See what?” she asked as Parker directed her attention to where he was looking. A figure was standing roughly a hundred yards away, looking their direction.

They both stared at the figure, silent. Parker wondered who it was. Was it Lara again? Where was Master Sora and Caleb at?

In front of the figure, a large chunk of the ground started to rise in the air and then was launched in their direction. Parker felt like a deer in headlights, he didn’t know what to. Alexis threw her arms out in front of her in an attempt to stop the boulder, but it seemed to do nothing. At the last second, Alexis created an eruption of air that burst out from her, throwing both of them to the ground twenty feet away.

The boulder created a giant crater in the ground creating a sound that was only magnified by the largest boom of thunder Parker had ever heard before. His instincts began to take over and he quickly got to his feet. Raising his hands around him as if he was raising a puppet, the ground began to rise in a circle around him. He spun the earth around him rapidly, turning it into a fine sand.

Large rock after large rock was hurled at him and Alexis. Parker turned the sand into a hard barrier in front of them. The first rock pounded against, putting a large crack through it. The second rock crashed right through and glanced off of his shoulder, sending him to the ground.

Parker shot right back up and kicked several rocks into the air and launched them back at the figure as hard as he could muster. The first and second rock landed just short of the figure but the third was right on target. It was hard to see, but Parker could tell the figure deflected it at the last moment with ease.

“What’s going on?” Caleb yelled as he and Master Sora ran to them.

“Someone’s attacking us! But we don’t know who.” Parker shouted over the thunder. The sky lit up over and over as lightning snaked from cloud to cloud.

Master Sora stepped between them and the figure. “Stay here.” He rose up off of the ground and they could see a swirling storm of wind begin whipping around him in a sphere. Loose rubble and debris from all around began getting picked up in his storm. They could feel the wind whipping around their faces as he floated towards the figure.

Parker hated waiting back to see what they should do next but watching the master fly away with a storm surrounding him had him paralyzed with a level of fear. The master was mentioning how he was in awe of them, but how could someone with this much power be in awe of them?

“We have to go help him!” Caleb shouted. More thunder exploded above their heads. The sky continued to flash, almost constantly now even though there was still no rain.

“He said stay here,” Alexis shouted back.

They were all on their feet and before they could stop him, Parker took off in a dead sprint after the master. As he ran, he began creating the swirl of sand around him that he had earlier. Getting closer, he raised the sand up in front of him and began shooting bullets of sand in the direction of the figure. Some of the bullets got sucked up into Master Sora’s storm while the others seemed to be finding their target.

Master Sora began slashing at the figure with what could only be described as giant knives made of air. The figure sent rock after rock at Master Sora and that was when Parker was sure that the figure had to be Terra. It was the only possibility. Lara would never just use her Earth Imperial in a fight like this.

Parker was wishing it would rain so he could incorporate his Water Imperial as well. Fire wasn’t going to do him a lot of good at the moment, so he would just do it with Earth and Air.

What felt like hours went by as they exchanged blow after blow at each other. Parker couldn’t believe how Terra was able to fight against the both of them so well. He was wishing that Alexis and Caleb would step in but as he moved around, he noticed they didn’t seem to want to get any closer to the battle.

Master Sora flew in to make a stab with his air knives and Terra blasted him in the chest. Master Sora went flying through the air and crashed to the ground with a loud thud. Parker could see that his air knife had made a large gash across Terra’s chest and blood began to pour out.

Parker ran to Master Sora and knelt down by him. Master Sora’s breathing didn’t seem right. His breaths were going in and out, struggling to keep it steady. “Stay with me Master Sora,” Parker begged.

Alexis appeared by his side and used the water from her side strap container to start healing him as best she could. It had been so long since she’d done this that she was rusty.

Glaring over his shoulder, Parker could see Terra lying on the ground panting for breath as well. He didn’t know why, but the sight of Terra struggling like that made Parker happy.

Parker decided to get up and go stand over Terra and figure out why he attacked them. As he approached, Terra raised his hands as if he was lifting something heavier than possible. He couldn’t figure out what the dying man was trying to do in his last moments.

Alexis screamed from behind him, forcing him to whip around. He saw a massive pillar of stone coming out of the ground at an angle and began to fall at them. Alexis tried to force it to the side but the sheer weight of it was too much. She barely got out of the way as it glanced off of her shoulder, clearly shattering bones. The pillar crashed down onto Master Sora’s lower half.