Parker walked over to a bench that was on the pier and sat down, staring out into the darkness over the water. He still wasn’t sure what to do or say at that moment, not knowing what was going through Lara’s head. Was she going to go berserk or was just going to listen and help him come up with a new plan?

Several long minutes passed by as Parker sat there and Lara stood unmoving. He thought to himself that he really had two options sitting in front of him: Option One, brainstorm with Lara on how to stop Master Terra but risking nearly the same fight happening in the city or Option Two, kill Lara and figure out how to stop Master Terra on his own. He was struggling because Option Two was what his heart wanted. He wanted to kill the person that killed Alexis. Anyone in their right mind would want that. Justice. However, he couldn’t stop thinking to himself that he had no idea how to stop Master Terra. Parker sighed and decided he should probably go with Option One, but Option Two was not off the menu.

Lara sat down on the bench next to him with her shoulders sagging. In a heavy voice, Lara said, “Tell me how it happened.”

Parker recalled how everything had happened from his perspective. He knew that the fight would go differently this time because not only had he already been through it but he was multitudes stronger than he had been the last time.

Lara sat quietly, taking in everything he had said. Parker couldn’t believe that she didn’t interrupt him even once, but he also couldn’t fathom being told the story of how his daughter died. He imagined it had to be the worst thing any parent could ever go through.

She turned her head and looked Parker in the eye. With a level voice, she said, “But, we have the advantage now. You know what happens. You can stop this.”

“We need to stop and think, Lara.” He was surprised at how calmly she spoke but there was deep, painful emotions behind her response. “There are two roads we can take here,” his mind raced back to Option One and Option Two but knew those were inside thoughts. “We can either let the story run its course and try to stop him in the city before the worst happens or we can try to stop him before. The latter is obviously the smarter choice right?” he asked.

“No shit,” she spat back. “Why would we give him extra time? He’d clearly done something to her before I took them to the city right? You said her skin tone seemed duller than normal and her face looked depressed. Had he taken her Imperial away?”

“He hadn’t yet, but he was definitely trying to. The problem is, I don’t know how to find them right now. Not only was I just bad at trying to sense his core, but I’ve struggled to sense even the cores I know since I’ve been here.”

“You said I trained you last time right? So shouldn’t you know what you need to do in order to figure it out?” Parker half-nodded his head. “Guess I’m not a great teacher huh?” Lara almost let out a small chuckle but contained it.

“We still have a while before the city battle happens, so give me a little time and I will work on finding their cores. Once I’ve got it figured out, I’ll find you.”

Lara responded, “Shouldn’t I be able to find them though? You said I found them just before you did right?”

“Yes, but obviously that was further in the future and I have no clue how you were able to do that. So, it looks like we both need to practice a bit. I just know we need to sense their cores and he’s doing everything he can to mask both of theirs.”

“Just don’t waste precious time,” she snapped back and then vanished from her seat next to him.

Parker sat on the bench for a while as the moon slowly shifted through the sky. He knew they could do this. They could pull this off, but deeper down, he knew they had to pull this off, for Hailee’s sake.

Taking this as a chance to practice, he closed his eyes and thought about holding Alexis and kissing her and within a few seconds he could hear her core pulsing in his mind.

The next thing he knew, he was standing next to her bed. The room was dark and he could hear slow, heavy breathing from every direction. It took a moment but he realized he was in Alexis’s room and everyone was sleeping. He quietly tiptoed his way out of the room, knowing full well that he definitely was not supposed to be in their room.

As he made it to the common room, he wondered how she was able to sleep knowing that he had just vanished from in front of her. He felt like he hadn’t been gone that long, at least not long enough for her to stop worrying and get tired enough to go to bed. But he also didn’t know how much time had passed by while he sat on the pier by himself.

The common room was empty aside from Monty snoring next to the fire. Parker took a seat on the couch and made a squeaking noise. Monty’s ears perked up and he hopped down off of the hearth and crawled up Parker’s pant leg. Monty turned on the spot a few times and made himself comfortable, falling right back to sleep. Parker hadn’t realized how much he’d missed Monty. Monty hadn’t been around long before the Earth 2 change happened and he honestly kind of forgot about Monty given everything that was happening but now that he had him back, he knew he’d never forget.

———

Parker had dozed off on the couch and was awoken by a bright light shining onto his face. He slowly opened his eyes and could see that the sun was up, he could hear others moving around behind him and Monty was snoring on his lap.

He turned his head around to see who all was moving around behind him and he saw Oliver and Dexter laughing as they disappeared out of the entrance. He felt a presence land next to him on the couch as Alexis plopped down beside him.

“You’re back!” she squealed, pulling him into a hug. Monty fell off the side of Parker’s lap and sat upright, shaking his head. “Oh! Sorry Monty…” Monty chittered and scurried onto her lap, making himself comfortable.

Parker filled her in on everything that had happened with Lara. While he was telling the short story, Caleb joined them on the couch, catching the end. He then began to tell them what had happened years ago for him when he actually trained with Lara and everything they had done together. Part of Alexis couldn’t believe that Parker would agree to work with her given everything she’d done, but she trusted Parker. Even though this wasn’t her Parker, she knew that her Parker existed somewhere inside of this Parker.

Reading on this site? This novel is published elsewhere. Support the author by seeking out the original.

“So what’s the plan now?” Caleb asked.

“I need to step the hell up, that’s the plan.”

Caleb laughed. “I mean, I couldn’t agree more,” he chided. “But how are you going to do that?”

“Well, while I sat on the pier by myself I remembered what we did to find Lara in the future and I think that’s going to be the key. So, right now, we need to go find Master Sora.”

The three of them made their way down to The Regale in hopes to find Master Sora sitting at the head table eating his breakfast. When they arrived, Parker saw Master Kingston and Master Keegan sitting there talking while eating their breakfast.

They walked up and interrupted. “Where’s Master Sora?” Parker asked.

Master Kingston put her piece of toast down and said, “I haven’t seen him this morning,” she turned her head to Master Keegan. “Have you?” Master Keegan shook his head while taking a bite of eggs.

“Well, that’s not helpful,” Parker said as he turned around to leave. Alexis and Caleb didn’t move as Parker got further away. He realized that they weren’t with him after a moment. He turned around and asked, “Are you coming?”

Caleb looked at him confused. “Coming where?”

“I assume he’s in his chambers,” Parker answered.

“He wasn’t when I went by,” Master Keegan interjected.

Parker squinted his eyes slightly and thought to himself for a second. He then closed his eyes, reaching out in his mind for the master’s core. Only ten seconds passed before Parker quickly reached out and grabbed Alexis and Caleb by the wrist, teleporting them to the library.

Sitting at the table in front of them was Master Sora, staring into a very thick book. “There you are!” Parker half shouted.

Master Sora jerked in his seat and put his hand to his chest. “What are you doing?” he asked, exasperated.

“We needed to talk to you,” Parker said. Everyone stared at Parker waiting for him to continue. “I need something of Master Terra’s.”

Master Sora looked at him confused. He made a gesture with hand telling Parker to add some more detail but Parker just stared at him. “What of Master Terra’s do you need?”

“Anything. The more he cared about it, the better.”

The master sat in front of them quietly thinking. “Let me go talk to the other masters and see what they think.” Master Sora disappeared in a flash.

Parker grabbed Alexis and Caleb by the wrist again and teleported them back to The Regale. Master Sora was standing in front of the head table talking to the other two masters. As they got closer, Master Sora turned around. He walked toward them, closing the gap quickly. “Follow me.”

The three of them waited for the master to pass them and then turned and followed suit. They were led down toward the caves under the castle. Parker had never actually gone down to the cave for fear of whatever traps they’d set in place. He might be able to use his Earth Imperial but that didn’t mean he knew what traps were set or how to stop them.

Master Sora stopped and faced the wall. The three of them looked at the master confused as he was standing in front of just a cave wall. No door. No indication that there was anything there.

“Master Sora?” Parker asked. “What’s going on?”

“Master Terra’s chambers are behind this wall.”

“How do you know the exact spot?” Alexis asked.

Master Sora turned to look at her when he answered. “Years ago, before any of you were born, the four of us agreed that we should be able to have access to each other’s chambers in case anything were to happen. We all trusted each other so no one had an issue with it. Guess we lucked out there didn’t we?” he asked with a slight chuckle.

The master raised his hands up slightly from his sides, “If you could just turn away for a moment,” he asked. The three of them turned their heads away and a gust of wind knocked them a step forward and air and pebbles bounced off the backs of their necks.

“Why’d we need to look away?” Caleb asked.

The master opened the door that had appeared in the wall before him and said “Are you a master?”

“No,” Caleb answered.

“Then you don’t get to know.”

The chambers were completely dark. Being in the caves meant that his chambers had no natural light source.

Alexis asked, “Why doesn’t he use the luminescent moss that’s in the cave for his chambers? The cave halls were easy to walk down thanks to that stuff, but I see he doesn’t have any in here.”

“You know,” Master Sora started to answer. “I asked that same question a while back and all he said was, ‘I prefer to see with my feet.’ That still doesn’t make sense to me. Like I get that he can use the vibrations in the ground to sense what’s around him, but like, the eyes are so much better and faster.”

Caleb raised his hand in the dark, “Actually, I find my vision through my feet to be just as accurate as with my eyes, or eye,” he corrected himself.

“Unless it’s something coming out of the air,” Parker added.

“It doesn’t matter anyway,” Master Sora interrupted as he turned on a lamp. “He liked that at first and then realized he can’t read any materials with no light source so he brought down a lamp a while back.”

The chambers were now filled with shadows all over the place. Parker had thought Master Sora and Master Keegan’s chambers were cluttered with books but there were just as many if not more stacks of books in Master Terra’s. Then, adding the shadows on top of it, the chambers looked awful.

“Let’s look around and see if we can find something of use for you.” Master Sora said as he stepped further into the chaos. “What’s your plan for whatever we find?”

Parker knocked over a stack of books as he tried to move around. “Well, years ahead—” he stopped, wondering if that was the right way to say the opposite of years ago. “I needed to find Lara and I ended up using Hailee's hairbrush to find her because it was the last thing Lara had given to her. The moment I touched it, I sensed Lara’s core and without even trying, I teleported right to her.”

Silence engulfed the room as everyone stopped digging through piles. “So, what I’m hearing is you need to not touch anything,” Alexis broke the silence. “The last thing we need is for you to find something similar here and just teleport to Master Terra.”

Parker realized that she was completely right so he said he would stand still and they could continue looking. He watched as each of them dug and dug through piles of junk and books looking for something they thought that he would care a lot about.

“Has anyone looked in his desk yet?” Caleb asked? No one answered so he started opening drawers. The desk was weird to Caleb because it was just made out of rocks and dirt. The master had clearly made this himself from the ground underneath it. The drawers slid open roughly and when he looked inside they were full of more junk so he started pulling everything he could out and just tossing it on the floor.

“Any luck?” Alexis asked as she approached the desk.

“Nothing yet?” he answered.

“Yet?” Alexis asked. “You already threw everything on the floor. What’s left?”

Caleb spread his fingers out on top of the desk and closed his eye. “Something’s… off…” he mumbled. He slowly slid his hands outward toward the sides of the desk. A second later a square in the center of the desk popped up about an inch. Caleb extended his hand over the square and lifted like he was controlling a puppet.

The square came out completely and there was a hole in the top of the desk a few inches deep. When Caleb looked inside, he let out a small gasp.

“What’s in there?” Everyone asked simultaneously.

Caleb lifted out a picture frame and showed it to the others. In the center of the frame was a picture of a younger looking Master Terra holding a baby girl in his lap. Master Terra had a smile bigger than they’d ever seen on him before as he looked down at the little girl who looked to be in the middle of a fit of laughter.

“Do you think this will work?” Caleb asked.