Vide arrived shortly with clothes and food as if she went grocery shopping. Her pale white face had turned red and sweaty now from all the things she had gathered from different places using her Obelisk. The thing is, she could only translocate things that were just a few meters away and also the amount of energy needed is proportional to the mass of the object she's translocating.
"Here you go." Vide dumped the clothes she stole, including two new crutches, in front of Calvin.
"How are you feeling?" she asked Lazzi.
"My stomach still hurts but I think I can stand now."
"What are these?" Calvin asked while examining the clothes Ophelia had brought. His eyebrows crunched. It was a blue and green striped button shirt, probably oversized, and a black chino shorts paired with worn-out sandals. "Am I going to some beach party?"
Ophelia stared intently at Veross, as if she was going to say something but she just sighed and averted her gaze back at Lazzi.
"I've brought some pain reliever for you Shijian. The medicine here is so primitive. They don't even have fibroplax."
"We don't have fibroplax in our planet either." Lazzi said sternly. Vide's eyes visibly widened and her face turned red.
"What's fibroplax?" Calvin asked, genuinely confused.
"You wouldn't get it." Ophelia replied.
"It's a high-end drug that lets you heal your injuries quickly. But only the rich can have those." Lazzi retorted. "But in Gaia, since they're more advanced, they take it like candies."
"I-um...I never thought it was a high-end drug."
"It's okay. I understand. It's difficult to imagine the things we take for granted to be something that others can't even have. Privilege does that."
Calvin looked at the both of them. He could feel some sort of tension between the two. Calvin cleared his throat and continued to dress himself.
"So what's our plan Veross?" Vide asked. She sat in front of the two boys and tore open a bag of burger and started gnawing on it.
Lazzi patted Calvin's shoulder who was busily trying to put on shorts on his limp legs. Lazzi grinned. He found Calvin's innocence amusing.
"What? Oh yeah, I'm Veross. But please call me Calvin. Veross is such a weird name."
Vide sighed. "Alright Calvin, what's our plan?" she asked again.
"Why ask me? I shouldn't even be here."
Vide winced visibly. "Why ask you? My stars!" She looked at Lazzi as if asking for an explanation. "We're gonna die, aren't we?"
Calvin tilted his head. "What? What did I say?"
"Ophelia, he's still new to this." Lazzi defended.
"New or not, this is not what I was expecting from our new Veross. Just look at him, he couldn't even put on his shorts by himself. How are we going to defeat Ortus? How are we going to get home?"
"Hey! Watch it Ophie!" Calvin bellowed.
Ophelia's mouth went agape. "Ophie? How dare—Ophie, really? Might I inform you that Ophelia is an old respected name of the royal family. And here you are sullying it with—"
"What? Ophie is a cool name."
"You two shut it!" shouted Lazzi. He sighed and tried to control his temper. "We're not kids here, alright. Now Vide, you must understand that Calvin here is not from our time. He doesn't know everything yet but he will."
"He must! He is Veross, the Obelisk of Odds, the best strategist in the whole Universe! He should be the wisest of us all!"
"Oh-oh I'm sorry Ophie..."
"Ophelia" she corrected.
"Yeah, okay, I'm sorry Ophelia I don't meet your standards. But listen to this...I don't give a fuck! You got that? I didn't wish for this at all. If it weren't for your old friend Veross, I wouldn't have these stupid legs and those stupid crutches!"
"Calvin, calm down, okay?" Lazzi said. "Ophelia is just afraid, okay? We both are. Ortus wants all four Obelisk for himself and when he does acquire it all, he'll be completely unstoppable. With absolute power she can corrupt anything. He said he wanted to control every living creature to avoid more wars. He will deprive everyone of free will."
"You mean how he controlled my classmates?" Calvin thought about how he had described the hive mind of the book Cell to Cleo or Ortus, whoever she may be.
"Yeah. He needs your Obelisk to control the body of others within her sight. He needs my Obelisk and Vide's to control every other being in the entire Universe across all time and space. That's why Calvin, the fate of this entire universe, this reality is on our hands now. It is on yours too, whether you like it or not."
"Wow that's very encouraging. No pressure at all."
"This is serious Calvin." Ophelia chided.
"You know what? No. I don't want it in the first place. Take my Obelisk. A stupid wimp like me couldn't be a hero. She's right. I can't fight that unkillable zombie. I'll just be a burden."
"Maybe we should really take it from him?"
"No! That is not what the previous Veross said. This is the only way to defeat Ortus, he said, remember?"
Ophelia grunted in frustration. "But he's saying now that we take it. Right Calvin?"
"Yeah, I have nothing to do with all of these Obelisk stuff. It was just an accident that I got this."
"Accident?" Lazzi scoffed. "Out of all the Obelisks, Veross is the least likely to cause an accident, do you understand that? He literally controls fate. You are meant to be the Obelisk of Odds Calvin!"
"But—"
"But nothing Ophelia! Let's believe in Veross. Both the old and the new one. We will win this."
Calvin wiped his face vigorously. "If I do this, I will die. I will surely die! And you two would lose so—"
"No, that wouldn't happen," Lazzi assured. "What if—what if we make a deal."
"A deal?"
"Help us retrieve the Obelisk of Emergence back and after that, we will grant any of your wishes."
Calvin wondered about his mom alive in a different reality. The thing called hope once again grew in his heart but this time it is more solid than a puff of air. He could live happily once again. And the world wouldn't treat him like shit anymore because he will be the luckiest.
Ophelia groaned. "This is ridiculous. Trillions of lives are at stake here. If he doesn't want to help, let him be. Let's just take his Obelisk away and we'll defeat Ortus ourselves."
"Ophelia please." Lazzi snapped.
"Fine." Calvin retorted. "I'll do it. In return, place me on a different reality where my mom is still alive. Is that possible?"
"Y-yeah. That's certainly possible, right Ophelia?"
Ophelia looked at them sternly, especially at Lazzi who's giving her a "Come on, just say yes," look. She cleared her throat. "I guess. But on the other hand, you must protect your Obelisk at all costs. Promise us that."
"Sure." It didn't take a second for Calvin to answer. He would take any chance to live a better life than this current one, he thought.
Lazzi patted Calvin's shoulder. "Good. Now we have to think. We have to plan carefully how we can defeat Ortus."
Calvin tried to think of a solution, a plan to fight a power that he just learned that exists. How can they beat someone who can control every cell in her body?
"What's his weakness anyway?" Calvin asked.
"We're really pushing it to call it a weakness but being Ortus requires a lot of energy." Ophelia said.
"Yeah especially when he regenerates. If he loses all his cellular energy then he's no different from a regular human."
Calvin took note of that. It was simple then, he thought. Force Ortus to lose energy. But how? In the middle of his circling thoughts, he noticed that the darkness had creeped inside the abandoned building where they were hiding and suddenly just remembered about his dad. Then a hunch crawled all over his skin. "Oh no..."
"What?" Vide asked.
"I have to go home. My dad. He's waiting for me." He doesn't know why but a voice in his head was telling him to go. His heart pounded so hard that he thought it would break open his chest. "I have to go home!"
"No way, that is too risky."
Calvin glared at Ophelia. "What the fuck are you talking about? I just need to see him. Just check if he's alright."
"What if Ortus knows who your dad is and where he lives? We couldn't afford to have another death match with Ortus!" Ophelia asked the exact same question that made him so anxious.
"Ortus couldn't possibly know where we live. If that's true, why didn't he attack me the moment I was at home?" he reasoned, hiding the fact that he himself doesn't believe his words. He must see him at all cost, he thought. He might not have treated his dad well ever since his mother died but he still deeply cares about him. He's the only one Calvin has in this world.
"You're not sure about that. Shijian help me with this."
But Shijian remained quiet and looked at the two. He suddenly felt the pressure to take the side of one of them. "Ophelia is right. Going out could be risky."
"You know what? Fuck both of you! I'm going out on my own." Fueled with anger and fear, he mustered his strength to stand up and walked away as fast as his weak recovering legs could.
"I'm not done." Shijian stopped him. "It would be risky but I know how it feels. We'll get your dad somehow, okay?"