“Do you think you can teleport us that far?” Alexis asked Parker.

Parker raised his eyebrows. “All the way to the castle from here?” His voice raised an octave as he asked the question.

“Yeah,” she said as if it weren’t a ridiculous question. “I mean, you teleported me way further than that before.”

He raised his hands up defensively. “Yeah, but that was back on Earth 1. I haven’t even been able to get into my Space Imperial yet. It’s like I’m having to relearn everything. Aren’t you having troubles still too?”

Ana walked up on their conversation and couldn’t help but interject herself into it. “What are you wanting to go back to the castle for?”

Alexis grabbed Ana’s sleeve and pulled her into a sitting position by them. “We think we may know a way to find Lara,” Alexis whispered.

Ana’s eyes went wide. “Wait, you can sense her core again?”

Parker’s head dropped. He hadn’t even thought about that yet. Alexis shook her head. “Not yet, but I think if we find something of hers, it will help Parker be able to sense it.”

“Why would Lara have something at the school?” Ana asked.

“We think Hailee might have had something from her.”

“How am I supposed to find her if I can’t even sense your core?” Parker asked in a defeated tone.

Alexis slapped her forehead softly. “Weren’t you listening? I said I think the item will help you sense it.”

Caleb started to walk toward them and when he made eye contact with Parker, he simply turned his head and kept walking. It was clear to Parker that Caleb wasn’t over his comment from earlier. Alexis poked him in the leg hard. “Go fix that. Now.” It was a demand, and Parker was in no place to disobey it.

Parker quickly got up and did an awkward walk/jog to catch up with Caleb. He put his hand on Caleb’s shoulder to try and stop him and Caleb sent a burst of wind into Parker chest, sending him flying through the air several feet and crashing to the ground.

“What was that for?” Parker shouted. Many people turned their attention to the quarrel that was unfolding. Parker shot a blast of air at Caleb’s back making him stumble forward.

“Stop it!” Alexis yelled, running between the two of them. “Would you two grow up? You’re almost eighteen years old for heaven’s sake!”

Caleb wheeled around, ready for another strike. “He started it!”

“Really? ‘He started it!’ How old are you?” Ana insisted.

Everything was quiet and still for a moment as others lost interest in the scene and went about their business. Parker got back up to his feet and walked toward Caleb who looked like he still wanted to blast Parker’s head off his shoulders.

“What’s the deal here?” Ana asked.

“Parker’s the deal,” Caleb spat.

“Look,” Parker shot at him. “I was coming to apologize to you when you attacked me. So, if you don’t want to fix this then so be it.” Parker turned to storm off, but Alexis grabbed him by the arm, holding him in place.

“Grow up! The both of you.” Parker could hear the fury in her voice now. He hated hearing her get this mad. “Parker made an idiotic comment. We’ve all made idiotic comments before. Can we please just move on?”

“I don’t know,” Caleb started in a mocking voice. “Am I going to be able to do enough to help you guys? You know since you’re capable of doing anything!”

“Seriously?” Alexis asked exasperated and then stormed off with Ana close on her tail.

“Can I apologize?” Parker tried asking. Caleb glared at him without saying anything.

“Well?” Parker asked, growing frustrated. Caleb gave him the most subtle nod he possibly could. “Look, I was just frustrated earlier. You know I didn’t mean what I said. I just want to get back and save Hailee.”

Caleb let out a loud huff. “I get it. But you need to check your anger. I’m tired of being the outlet for it. Since we’ve been on Earth 2 it’s like you’ve been going out of your way to only get mad at me. I’m sick of it.”

“No, I haven’t,” Parker defended.

“Seriously? You’ve yelled at me for something different on almost a daily basis. I don’t get it!” Caleb looked like he wanted to slap Parker across the face. “Did I do something?”

Parker thought for a minute but knew that Caleb had done nothing wrong. He wasn’t sure why, but Caleb just seemed to be the easiest one to let his frustration out on. After a moment, he realized that it had almost always been like that. He remembered a night at school when they’d been on the roof, and he’d nearly killed Caleb because he was angry about something. He couldn’t even remember what it had been about.

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“No…” Parker said, ashamed of his behavior.

“Then what’s the deal Parker?”

“I don’t know…” Parker answered, dropping the ground. “Something’s been off with me lately.”

“Lately?” Caleb scoffed. “You’ve been doing this for months!”

“You wouldn’t—”

“Don’t even tell me I wouldn’t understand! I’ve been attacked, I’ve lost an eye and I even lost the girl I loved!” Caleb’s eye went wide.

Parker didn’t know what to say back to that. He stared at Caleb for what felt like an eternity. Caleb had never said he loved Hailee before. Everyone had assumed it, but he’d never said the words before.

“I have to watch you have everything! You were turned into an Omni, something I was born to do, literally. You were safe when the tower collapsed on me. Your girlfriend didn’t die in your arms and here you are, complaining to me and getting mad at me. So, tell me again how I wouldn’t understand!”

There was a long moment of silence between the two of them. The air whistled by. Any spectators had moved away and given them their space. Things were so tense that Parker felt like he could’ve cut the air with a knife.

“I’m sorry.”

Caleb stared at Parker baffled. “I’m sorry? That’s it?”

Parker could tell that Caleb was now staring at him with a fury he’d never seen. He didn’t know Caleb was even capable of being so angry. “What else do you want me to say? I’m sorry that I’m the worst friend you could ask for? I’m sorry that you’ve wasted so much of your time by wanting to be around me for this long? What do you want? It’s in the past. I can’t change what I’ve done—” Parker trailed off. “—yet.”

-----

The next few days were extremely tense, and they did everything they could to stay away from one another. Parker kept trying to figure out why his Imperials still weren’t working. Although, after this long he wasn’t sure he would ever be able to get them to work again. It looked like he was back to just controlling the four elements. Alexis had berated him several times for the way he’d acted toward Caleb. He knew he deserved it but he didn’t understand what they wanted him to do about it now. He’d already promised to try and be a better friend, but it wasn’t like he could take back what he’d done. Not until he figures out how to travel back in time, which at this point he thought would never happen.

The group they were traveling with had decided that it was time to move on from their currently place due to the supplies in the area becoming scarce. Many of the houses and stores around were empty now after being raided for so long. No one was able to give up any good suggestions on where to go from where they were though.

A few days later, the group had packed up all the important things they needed and set out to their next location. Master Sora led the journey, always trying to be at the front of the group as they walked aimlessly east. Rumor had made its way around that Lara was somewhere in the eastern United States. That being said, no one was able to give a precise location as to where in the east she was. Did that mean she was all the way on the east coast? Or simply east from where they were at? Because if it was the latter, then that meant they were still pretty much clueless.

No one was happy about this new world anymore. Parker had heard a lot of people get really excited since it meant they no longer had to go to their job, pay bills, listen to their superiors. However, the novelty of it wore off much faster than they expected. Having no rules in place anymore, no force in their way meant that a lot of people took advantage of the new freedom.

Many of the Imperials used their abilities to loot from stores, even though eventually most everyone did that. The worst of them began attacking groups they would pass and steal all of their belongings leaving them with nothing. One group had tried to attack them but didn’t realize how many Imperials were in their group, let along how many of them were good at battling. They quickly realized how outnumbered they were and disappeared.

Parker felt like they were lucky because other than that one group, there hadn’t been anyone that had tried to steal from them or attack them, at least to his knowledge. Master Sora did a good job of staying on top of everything. He couldn’t imagine what they’d be like if Master Sora hadn’t made it to Earth 2. Yes, there were plenty of adults with them, but no one stepped forward to help take charge except for the masters from Lancastre.

Alexis grabbed Parker’s hand as they walked. In the beginning, Parker hadn’t been a big fan of showing affection when they around other people, but lately it was the one thing that always made him smile no matter what. And with the way things were looking, he didn’t care who was around to see.

The sun had begun to drop in the sky, and it felt darker than usual since they were in a heavily wooded area. Parker had figured out early on that he actually preferred camping out in the woods rather than in a suburban area. He’d dreamed many times that after everything was done and fixed, he and Alexis would build a small house in the woods somewhere by a lake.

“So where do you think Master Sora is going to take us this time?” Ana asked, catching up to Parker and Alexis. They were walking at a leisurely pace now has the group was spreading out to settle down for the night.

“I don’t know,” Alexis said. “But I hope it’s better than the mall we were just at. I’d love to stay in an area where I might have an actual bed.”

Ana laughed. “You could’ve stayed in the mattress store with me you know.”

Alexis did know that but remembered that she’d promised Parker she’d stay with him. Parker hadn’t been opposed to sleeping in the tents that they’d found in their travels.

“I know, I’ll be fine. Just hoping for something a little different this time.”

“I hope we end up somewhere a little warmer,” Parker added. “This place got stupid cold at night.” Both girls started laughing. “What?” Parker asked confused.

Alexis squeezed his hand. “You’re telling me you want it to be hot when you sleep? Cause if you are, I’m not sure we’re going to work out.”

Parker started to panic. “What are you trying to say? You won’t want to be with me if I don’t want to sleep in a deep freeze?”

“Of course I will, but who in their right mind wants it to be warm when they sleep? When it’s warm you can’t bundle up in a comforter… or snuggle...” she blushed.

Ana burst out laughing when she saw how red Parker’s face had gotten. “Aw… Parker…” Ana started teasingly poking at him. “Are you embarrassed? Do you think anyone here cares? You’ve been together for what? Like five years now?”

“We haven’t been together—” Parker started but stopped when he saw Alexis drop her head. “I mean—” he stopped again when Alexis started laughing. “What’s going on?” Parker asked in confused frustration.

“We’re just playing Parker,” Alexis laughed. Ana started to laugh even harder. “You’re going to need to be a little more with it, at least if you’re wanting us to work out,” she laughed with wink.

Parker let out a sigh of relief. He wasn’t in trouble, at least for this. “Where’s Caleb?” he asked in a quiet voice.

“Why are you whispering?” Ana asked. “Caleb’s…” she trailed off, looking around the group. “Over there.”

Parker looked to where she was pointing and saw Caleb standing by himself. “I’ll be right back,” he said as he walked away from the girls.

He made his way over to Caleb, weaving in and out of all the other people in the way. When he got to Caleb, he reached to tap him on the shoulder but stopped himself. “Hey…” he said in a small voice. Caleb didn’t acknowledge that Parker had said anything. “If you want, you can come stay over by us.” Again, Caleb did nothing to show that he’d heard what Parker had said.

If Parker wasn’t mistaken, he could’ve sworn that it looked like Caleb was in a defensive stance, like he was ready for an attack. Before he could say anything else, a person came flying out of one of the trees near them and threw a fireball at one of the kids in the group.