During their training, they decided to hold a “birthday” for the three of them celebrating being officially eighteen years old. Since no one they knew could tell them what the date was, it was impossible to know when they would actually be eighteen. It had been four months since Master Sora’s death and decided that was the day to call themselves adults and take action.

It was a bright, clear morning. Puffy white clouds floated above in the bright blue sky. The three of them made their way out to the front of the castle and Parker sat down at the head of Master Sora’s grave.

“This is where we fight for you. This is the moment that we fix everything Lara has done,” Parker said. He looked up at Alexis and Caleb standing nearby. “Give me just a moment.”

Parker closed his eyes and focused. He could sense Alexis and Caleb’s cores just a few feet from him pulsing faster than normal. Reaching out, he could feel various cores in the distance as he dialed in on the only one that mattered.

He reached out and grabbed Alexis and Caleb by the hand and the next thing they knew they were standing at the base of a building. “Quick!” Parker whisper shouted. “Follow me.”

Parker squatted and ran along the edge of a building into a group of trees. Once he felt they were sufficiently hidden he turned to the others. “See that building?” he asked, pushing a bush aside and pointing. They both nodded. “That’s Lara’s office, or whatever it is she calls it. I saw her throw Mr. Blackwell out of a window near the top.”

“She did what?!” Alexis exclaimed louder than intended.

“Shh!” Parked put a finger to his lips, while covering her mouth with his other. “Mr. Blackwell was fine. He’s an Air Imperial, so he never actually hit the ground. But that’s not the point I’m try to address. We need to get up there so we can confront her.”

Caleb furrowed his brow staring at Parker. “That doesn’t sound all that difficult.”

“Well, the last time I tried walking into that building, I teleported back to Lancastre. So, I don’t even know if we can just walk in the doors. We need to look for another way into this building I think.”

“Can you still sense that she’s up there?” Alexis asked. Parker nodded and motioned for them to follow him.

He began running toward the building, staying as low and out of sight as possible. From his experience, there weren’t very many people in this area so it shouldn’t be overly difficult to stay out of sight.

They reached the backside of the building where it seemed to have a small loading dock. “Do we go in here?” Caleb wondered out loud. “Or, do we fly our way up to the roof?”

Parker and Alexis looked at Caleb, debating between his two options. “How about we go in here, find a stairwell, and fly up the center of it? I did that the first time I was here,” Parker said. “That way, if we need to land we can quickly.” They all agreed and made their way into the building through an open door.

As they make their way through the first floor of the building, Alexis taps Parker on the shoulder, remaining silent, and points toward a stairwell sign to their right. They all nod and quietly make their way toward it. Parker, in the lead, opens the door as silently as possible and that’s when he sees that this stairwell has the tiniest of gaps that goes up the middle.

“I could barely fit a penny through that…” Parker muttered.

“Looks like we need to find a different one,” Caleb stated.

They continued to wander around the first floor for another stairwell. So far they’d gotten lucky as it seemed like not a soul existed in here. The others began to wonder if Parker was positive that Lara was even here.

“Over here,” Parker whispered to them. “This is the stairwell I went up the first time I was here. There’s plenty of space for us.”

“But won’t they be able to spot us easier in this one? It’s the main stairwell for this building,” Alexis said, clearly afraid of being caught.

Parker almost laughed at her. “Hey, how are they going to see us if we’re invisible?”

Alexis looked at him confused for a moment and then it clicked. She slapped her palm to her forehead and said, “Duh…” She grabbed ahold of Parker and Calebs’ hands and then everything turned a slight shade of gray around them.

“It’s been awhile since we’ve been able to do this,” Caleb pointed out. “Those four months really paid off.”

The wind picked up around them and they began ascending the stairs. “Okay, when we reach the top, it’s completely open to the floor. Last time I was here, I saw several people up there so we need to be ready. As soon as we come out of our space, Alexis, you need to freeze everyone. Then, we’re going to find Lara, grab her and I’ll teleport us all out of here. We need to be able to take her on all on our own. No risk of her having backup and she won’t have home field advantage.”

They landed on the floor and saw the open room before them. “I can sense four other people in this room. Lara is on the far side, my guess is near or in her office thing.”

Alexis pulls them out of their space. They can see the people Parker mentioned but they didn’t recognize any of them right away. No one seemed to notice their existence in the opening to the stairwell right away. Alexis raised her hands to freeze the room as two more people came walking out of a door on the edge of the big room. Everyone froze instantly.

“Parker! You said there were only four people and Lara. How’d you miss those two?” Alexis pointed to the open door.

“I don’t know. I mean I’m not perfect.” They walked over to see if they knew who they were. As soon as Parker could see them, he froze. His jaw dropped and he let go of Alexis’s hand.

“What’s—” Alexis stopped her sentence. Standing in the doorway were Parker’s parents.

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“We have to get them out of here!” Parker yelled.

“Wait!” Alexis grabbed his arm to stop him from approaching his parents.

Parker couldn’t believe what she was doing. “Wait for what?” he snapped.

“If we take them away now, Lara may notice and then we’ve lost our chance.” She said this as level-headed as Professor Sora would have. “Remember, we’re taking Lara away from here. Hopefully, they’ll take that as a chance to get away on their own. If not, now we know where they’re at.”

Parker continued to stare at her for a moment. He knew she was right, but how could he just leave his parents. “Okay…” he said, looking at his parents one last time before they turned to walk to Lara’s office.

The door was slightly open. Parker slowly pushed it open and saw Lara getting up from her chair. Something was wrong though. Everyone had frozen completely around them, but Lara was still moving, even if it was just inches at a time.

“We need to do this now,” Caleb shouted.

They rushed into the office. Her movements were growing quicker by the second. As they got to her, her mouth was opening to say something and Parker grabbed a hold of her and kept Alexis’s hand in his. She grabbed onto Caleb and the next moment they were standing in the sand on a beach.

The sun gleamed brightly overhead. There wasn’t a cloud in the sky. Parker quickly looked around and saw that the coast was clear. Not a person in sight. All he could see was sand, hills, water and a cave nearby. He turned his attention back to Lara.

“What,” Lara began to say, taking in her surroundings.

Parker threw his hand through the air like a karate chop and slice of air cut Lara across the face. Blood began to seep out as she lunged back, using the air to knock the three of them off of their feet.

They quickly stood up, never taking their eyes off of Lara. She reached up and felt the blood on her face. Parker didn’t know what she was going to do but he knew they had to act fast.

The sand around Lara burst up from the ground and began flying at them. Parker threw his hands up and pulled them down to the side like he was yanking a curtain off its hooks. A large burst of wind ripped through, blowing the sand to the side.

Parker, Alexis and Caleb quickly took off. Parker headed straight for her as the other two fanned out to cover the sides. Parker hurled fireball after fireball at her. They barely reached her as she easily deflected them. He knew it wasn’t much but it was at least keeping her attention.

Alexis was now between Lara and the ocean behind her. She began to pull water up and over her head in a giant wave. Caleb reached toward the wave like he was trying to grab something from it. Icicles began shooting out of the wave, directly at Lara. Right before they could hit her, she vanished. The next moment, she appeared behind Parker. Lara wrapped her arms around him and they disappeared.

“Where did they go?” Alexis screamed, the wave crashing down behind her as she ran forward.

“Over there!” Caleb shouted, pointing to where he could hear the two of them screaming at each other.

Giant flames erupted around them. It looked like it was letting off solar flares the way the flames were jumping out from it. Alexis and Caleb could only get so close to it due to the immense heat.

“What do we do?” Alexis asked. Caleb shook his head back and forth not sure what to say.

The flames disappeared in an instant and there was no one in them. More screaming came from behind them. As they turned, they could see Parker and Lara attacking each other on top of the water. They were running around on top of it, pulling water up to attack each other. Parker threw more fireballs at her that Lara easily turned to steam with a massive water whip.

Lara spun her body around completely, using her momentum to fling the water whip at Parker’s chest. Alexis could hear the cracking of the whip as it hit Parker. She screamed in rage and in an instant, she was standing in front of Lara, with her hand around her throat. Alexis’s blood boiled in her body as she squeezed tights. Lara grasped at her next, trying to free herself from Alexis’s choking.

Alexis fell forward as Lara disappeared from her hand. The ice that had formed under Alexis’s feet broke apart in the current of the water. She spun quickly, using the air to keep her floating above the water. Looking around for Lara, she remembered that Parker had fallen into the water.

She saw that Caleb had pulled Parker to the shore and was getting him back to his feet. Alexis let out a sigh of relief as she continued to scan the area for Lara. Frustrated that she couldn’t see her, Alexis returned to the shore and landed in the sand.

“Parker! Are you okay?” she asked, running to his side.

He coughed before speaking. “Yeah, I’ll be fine. Might have a bruise though,” he laughed.

“Where did she go?” Caleb asked. “I saw her vanish from your hands.”

Parker closed his eyes to search for her core. Before he could find it, he heard, “You bi—” from behind him. He spun around immediately to see Lara lunging at Alexis with a dagger shaped rock in her hand. Parker jumped between them and the dagger pierced through his left shoulder.

Alexis raised her hands and Lara froze in place. She grabbed Parker up from where he’d fallen and began running away from Lara. Caleb whipped up a large gust of wind that carried them out over the water and into the nearby cave for cover.

Inside the cave, they could see that it had two openings out into the water and a small beach of its own that they landed on. Parker groaned as he could feel every little movement of the rock as Alexis pulled it out of his shoulder. She began moving her hands in a rhythmic motion and a small stream of water began making its way from the ocean to her. She coated his wound in it which got a yelp of pain from him.

“Sorry! I normally have fresh water for this. Salt water works, but it’s not as effective.”

Parker could feel the wound closing up on his shoulder. He began to roll his shoulder around to see how it felt. “Still sore, but it should be okay.” He leaned forward and kissed her. “Thank you!”

He started to look around the cave and saw that there were rocks everywhere. Stalagmites and stalactites, not sure which was which but that they were all over. The ceiling of the cave had a big opening in it that the sun beamed directly though on them through. He squinted as he looked up and then a shadow engulfed them. Something was blocking the sun.

Lara came floating down through the hole, seething in anger. “So this is what you want?” she yelled at them.

Parker thought it was obvious but responded, “This is your own fault. You’ve gone mad!” he shouted as he began blasting small rocks at her. She easily brushed them to the side as if they were the tiniest of inconveniences.

“Then I’ll give you what you want!” Water burst from the ocean, spraying through the cave.

The three of them quickly spread out and started attacking back. Parker whipped as much wind around as possible to slow her descent from the ceiling. Alexis gathered all of the mist spraying around into a large ball of water as Caleb used it to shoot icicles at her.

It seemed like nothing was working. Yes, her descent slowed but she still landed in the sand with no real problem.

“Is that the best you’ve got?” she laughed.

“You wanna see my best?” Alexis screamed. She began pulling at Lara like she was pulling a rope from her. Lara looked confused but quickly realized what was happening. Alexis pulled faster and faster.

“What are you doing?” Parker asked as he saw Lara start to grab at her own neck. He could hear her gasping for air and that was when he realized what Alexis was doing. Instincts took over and he knocked Alexis over and Lara took in a deep breath. “Alexis! This isn’t you. I should be the one—”

“That’s how you want to play?” Lara screamed, still gasping deeping breaths down. Lara raised her arms up in the air and stalagmites and stalactites from all around broke off from their bases and hovered in the air around her. They turned and pointed directly at them.

Letting out one more piercing scream, Lara threw all of the rocks at them. Alexis stepped between Lara and Parker and put her hands out in front of her. Parker stared, dumbfounded at the back of Alexis’s head. What was she doing?

The rocks began changing into sand that flew through the air. Parker heard Alexis gasp and start to fall backwards. He reached forward and grabbed her as she fell to the ground. He looked at her and saw a thin rock sticking out from Alexis’s chest. His eyes went wide and everything around him went silent. Time seemed to stop.

Parker began to let out a scream from the depths of his soul. Every moment, every happy memory he had with her flooded his head as he looked down into her lifeless eyes.