Parker awoke lying in the grass with his head propped up on a rock. Alexis was lying next to him with her head on his chest. He could tell from her breathing that she was fast asleep.
The moon was straight above his head as he stared into the open sky. Parker turned his head and saw Master Sora and Caleb sitting by a fire talking quietly, clearly trying not to wake either of them. He closed his eyes and tried to tune his hearing in as much as possible to overhear them but to no avail.
It was killing him not knowing what they were whispering about so he decided to gently slide Alexis off him, doing his best not to wake her. When she was resting peacefully on the ground, Parker got up and made his way over to the others. When he got to them, they immediately stopped talking and turned to look at him.
“How are you feeling?” Master Sora asked.
“Little woozy to be honest,” Parker said rubbing his head. He was feeling extremely light-headed, to the point where he quickly sat down next to them to avoid falling into the dirt.
Caleb reached out and placed a hand on his shoulder. “Not surprising. You had a pretty rough fall earlier so that’s understandable. The thought of your head hitting the ground like that still gives me the shivers.” Caleb noticeably winced.
Parker rubbed his head again. “What exactly happened?”
“I mentioned that Lara had been in the camp and then you disappeared,” Master Sora stated. “There has to be a connection right now between your Space Imperial and your rage. Both instances where your Space Imperial has worked, your level of rage has been at its highest.”
Parker shook his head. The master had to be right, but how could he fix that? Was it something he was going to be able to dial in and really put to use? Or was he simply going to vanish and blackout every time he got mad now?
“I think that we’re going to get your Imperial figured out really soon. I’ve got a couple of ideas and I think at least one of them will work,” the master said as if he could read Parker’s mind.
“Good. Because I’m sick and tired of this crap.” No one else said anything for several moments and then Parker remembered that the two of them had been whispering earlier and he wanted to know what it was about. How do you go about asking what two people are talking privately about though? Parker wasn’t sure but he was sure that he was tired of nonsense at this point. There was enough other bad stuff happening in their lives that he was fed up. “Tell me what you were whispering about when I woke up.”
Caleb’s eye went wide in surprise. The master leaned back slightly. There was an uncomfortable pause and silence that filled the air around them. “First off, don’t forget that I am still your elder and therefore deserve your respect.” Parker opened his mouth to interrupt but the master kept going. “Secondly, we were whispering so as not to wake you and Alexis. She was so exhausted waiting over you for you to wake up that she passed out right next you.”
Parker heard Caleb chuckle slightly under his breath and he knew it had to be because Alexis was sleeping with her head on his chest. “Okay. That’s fine and all but why did you immediately stop talking as soon as I got over here?”
Master Sora and Caleb looked at each other for a moment before saying anything. Parker’s blood pressure was starting to rise. He was extremely close to yelling out at them to just say it but then remembered Alexis was still sleeping. The master turned his whole body to face Parker.
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“We were discussing Lara and what her arrival at our camp meant. We stopped because last time I brought her up, you disappeared and then blacked out for hours.”
Parker immediately deflated. What was going on? Why was he getting so mad so quickly? “You brought her up a moment ago and I didn’t have any issues.” Parker felt like he was making a good point, but the master quickly batted that away.
“All I did was tell you what happened when you blacked out. That’s a huge difference from talking in depth about what her arrival means.”
“Actually, I have a question about that,” Parker interrupted. “If she showed up in our camp, why didn’t she try to kill us?”
Caleb and the master looked at each other again and Parker saw Master Sora nodded his head slightly. “Well,” Caleb started. “I don’t think Lara has ever wanted to kill us.” Parker opened his mouth to shoot down Caleb’s thought. Caleb held his hand out, “Before you interrupt, hear me out.”
Parker sat back and shoulders tense. He gestured for Caleb to go ahead and share his thoughts about Lara. Whatever he had to say had to be good.
“Think back to our first year when she was abducting everyone. She gave us opportunity after opportunity to stop her, never once tried to take any of us, or for that matter, even try to hurt us. The only time we were in danger that year is when we started attacking her while we were in that place. It seemed like she wanted to hurt us, but we never actually got injured.
“Then, our second year, we thought all of those things were being done by her, but it turned out to be Master Terra. So again, Lara was doing nothing to hurt any of us. The whole time she was just trying to find a way to help Hailee…” Caleb dragged her name out, as if the mere effort of saying her name hurt him. “Then, last year, she went out of her way to help you get stronger so that she could save Hailee and stop Master Terra.”
Parker sat quiet for several moments taking in everything Caleb had just said. Had Lara not actually been a villain this whole time? Had they simply made her to be the villain when the whole time the only enemy they ever had was Master Terra?
“Just think about. Everything she’s done up to this point has been for Hailee and trying to save her.”
Parker held up his finger, “But what about when she stole the Imperials from those students our first year? And the way she tried to take our Imperials?” He tried his best not to raise his voice but he couldn’t help it. Quickly, he glanced to Alexis who rolled to her side in her sleep.
“Shh…” Caleb hushed, pointing at Alexis. “Think about then, she never tried to kill us. She was just trying to take our Imperials. Heck, she wasn’t even going after me until I attacked her. And if I hadn’t done that, you guys never would’ve been Omnis!”
Parker took a deep breath. It was dawning on him that Caleb may actually be right. Lara may have never actually wanted to hurt them in any way. She was trying to steal their Imperials so she could create Earth 2 to save Hailee. All along, it didn’t look like it but now it seemed that she wasn’t the murderous woman Parker had made her out to be.
“So, do we know what she was doing here?”
“No…” Master Sora breathed. “She was in and out so fast. We wouldn’t have known it was her if Master Kingston hadn’t spotted her. All we know is she caused the explosion and disappeared. Then the men we had captive were gone also. We can assume that she was breaking them out, however, they could’ve simply used that as their means of escape. We have no true way of knowing what happened.”
The three of them sat in silence for a while around the crackling fire. The sky above was crystal clear. It still blew Parker’s mind how amazing the night sky looked when it was polluted with light. Being on Earth 2, the sky also looked different than he always remembered. Even after as much time as they’d spent there, he still struggled not to look in the same places for the constellations.
Parker could feel himself growing more and more tired and, not sure what was in store for the next day, decided to lay back down and get a little more sleep. He said a good night to both Caleb and Master Sora and made his way back to Alexis.
His heart raced when he looked at her face. The way the fire cast shadows made Alexis look both beautiful and as though she’d faced a million tragedies. Parker swore in that moment to never let her face any tragedy alone. He laid down next to her and pulled her into him. With a quick kiss on her head, he passed out.