CHAPTER 8: THE ISLAND

The Island, July 17, 2006, Midnight

Ulrich dreamed of his mother again. He was hitting her. Killing her. He didn't want to be doing it. Yet he was. She was screaming at him to stop. But he wouldn't. It was like he had no choice in the matter. He had to kill her. Otherwise, Ulrich himself would die. Because then he would have failed. And failure would make him weak. And weakness would offend the Master, make the Master punish him. It didn't matter anyway. His mother was just a piece of his world. One that didn't matter. Not in the least. The world was his. His to command. His to control. He was Darth Adolfus and he was proud of it. Ulrich Stern was dead. Now only Adolfus reined in his place.

Ulrich pulled back in shock and in disgust. His father was standing over him, shaking his head.

"Why did you do that?" Ulrich found himself asking, "Why did you make me like it."

Harold scowled, "Because you did like it. You truly did."

"I liked killing my mother." Ulrich's voice was shaking.

"My true son did." Harold smiled, "Maybe you can be that son again."

"Why do you want me to be?" Ulrich asked, "You have the son you always wanted."

"Yes." Harold conceded, "I guess I'd like the set. Maybe we can change that."

Ben Skywalker loved to fly. He loved the whirring sound of the Starship Engines. He loved the sky as it turned from blue to gray. He loved the feeling of weightlessness that came with it. But above all, Ben loved the view. He loved to look out the window filled with stars and clouds. He loved to see the world from up so high. This was his domain. His special, special perfect passion. This was both of his talents. One of them was as a pilot. He had always, always wanted to be a pilot almost as long as he wanted to be a Jedi. And he loved his talent to walk on pure, pure air. Ben's cousin, Nakin was pickier about his talent. And for that matter his Force Sensitivity. He only believed in using them when the "situation demands it." Ben groaned inwardly. He had never understood that. How hard was it to simply take into consideration that the "situation" always demanded adventure? Sardonic and empathetically, he grinned at Nakin at their Starship took off.

"What?"

"Oh, nothing."

"You're piloting at 600 miles an hour again."

Ben groaned, why did Nakin have to be such a wet blanket about everything?

"I can pilot faster."

"Please, don't."

"Oh I'm sorry." Said Ben, not sorry at all, "I didn't realize we needed to follow the Speed Limit on a mission to find this oh-so-very-important Separatist Prison Island. Especially considering the fact that we're on Earth where Starships don't have a bloody Speed Limit?!"

"As your commanding officer, I insist you slow down."

"Why are you my 'commanding officer'." Ben grinned evilly, "Because you're older. This just in, smart guy it's only by two months. You got Grandpa's name. I didn't. Big Whoop. Doesn't mean you outrank me."

"Yes, it does."

"Does not."

"Does too."

"I was Knighted first."

"By two minutes."

"Just slow down."

"Bite me."

There was a rustling in the cargo hold.

"Whatever that is, checking it is your job." Ben didn't even look up from the speedometer.

"You're on my foot." Tahiri Veila pushed Caleb McCartney in a melodramatic act of rebellion. This led to his smacking right into Zuko who pushed back.

"Hey, get off." The three of them struggled and scuffled in the back of Ben Skywalker and Nakin Solo's Starship.

"I knew this was a bad idea." Zuko complained.

"Following them was your idea." Pointed out Tahiri.

"I wouldn't have if I knew it would lead to this!"

"Well, guess what it did," Tahiri threw her hands up, "And now we're stuck in a locker barely big enough to stand up in."

"Hey guys, wait a minute?" Caleb reached out to touch the ledge of the ship, "Someone's here."

"Congratulations." Said a voice, "You figured out the situation."

"Nakin!" Tahiri pushed Caleb down onto the floor.

"What the heck are you guys doing?"

"What does it look like?" asked Zuko, throwing up his hands.

Nakin slapped his forehead, "You are not serious!"

Tahiri childishly pointed at Zuko, "It was his idea."

"I don't care whose idea it was." Nakin said, "This is a seriously dangerous situation."

"What else is new?" asked Caleb, "It's not like we aren't in those every other day."

"No!" Nakin said, "I mean there could be war."

"War?" Zuko asked, "I thought we already were at war. What was XANA coming back?"

"Bad luck?" Ben came out of from behind Nakin eating an apple, "In case anyone cares, we've reached our destination."

The Separatist Prison Colony known only as The Island was a desolate place. Surrounded on all sides by a stormy gray ocean and presided over by a tall, gloomy, set of buildings on top of an impossibly high cliff, it was virtually deserted and quite possibly completely dead. There were no plants growing anywhere. No animals. And most certainly no people. The ground was grayish brown. The sky, iron gray as though it was covered by an impenetrable metal dome. Yet there couldn't be a dome. How could there were be when it was raining. A light drizzle, mind you. But a cold one like ice and it was raining still. And anyway it didn't. The Sith probably didn't need a metal dome over the sky to keep prisoners from escaping. They probably didn't any guards on the outside either. Assuming the buildings were the prison, then climbing down that cliff-side alone was more than likely to be fatal. And even if someone was able to survive that, they'd still be screwed. Not because they were in the middle of the ocean, mind you. The infamous Alcatraz escape proved that that could be done. But it probably couldn't be done if you didn't know where you were going. Which if didn't know what world you were on, was pretty much a given.

"Space," Ben narrated dramatically, "The final frontier. Or more particularly a large Sith prison Island that one huge waste of space is. It's old, it's desolate and it's the most disgusting place you could ever pray to not get stuck on. But alas, our dear comrades have been kidnapped so now must valiantly go forth…"

"Ben." Nakin said sharply.

"Oh, come on," Ben complained, "everyone's thinking it. I just said it."

"Do you even have a plan," Zuko wondered.

"Yes!" Both cousins said together.

"I'm guessing this plan starts with one of us being stupid enough to scale that rock formation." Tahiri asked.

"Oh, contraire," Ben said, "No one is climbing any rock formation."

As far as walking on the sky went, Nakin was slow and deliberate. He held Tahiri's hand and stepped lightly over the imaginary stairs one by one. Ben was quick, less cautious and leading both Zuko and Caleb. And Zuko had never walked like this before. As he and Caleb hung to Ben's sides, the tall thin boy rushed up the stairs in a manner that almost made Zuko stumble and vomit.

Don't look down. He reminded himself. Not that it mattered the higher they got, the more light-headed Zuko felt. He was walking on air high above solid ground and into the endless starry sky and being lead by an overconfident idiot who could fall any minute and take Zuko and Caleb with him the spiky rocks below. As they reached the summit, the light-headed feeling began to slowly cease. Zuko wasn't exactly feeling confident, and the view wasn't exactly pretty. But he was worried. What if they reached the summit and entered the Prison and their friends weren't there. What if this was all a set-up and the Sith were there waiting for them. What if everyone who was missing was actually dead. What if…

Zuko tried to banish the thought, the idea of Mai being dead was horrible enough. But the idea that maybe just maybe that the other Lyoko Warriors were in terrible danger and they, the older ones, had allowed that danger to grow by going to The Island instead of going with them. That idea was unthinkable.

Zuko hated screwing up and letting people down.

Focus. He told himself, The others need you. Mai needs you. Xander and Jess need you. His feet touched the solid ground on top of the mountain. Ben on his left side. Caleb on the other side of Ben. Nakin and Tahiri standing nearby.

Nakin spoke the only words, "We made it. We're here."

Mai Wing Yee had some sort of electrodes stuck to her head. That didn't matter as much it normally would have. After all, she was being held captive by a band of narcissistic sociopaths. But they were pumping something into her head. Something that told her Azula and Ty Lee were off world, swimming in an endless abyss of magic and secrets. And that Zuko was here. But that was impossible. Zuko couldn't be. Could he? There was no reason for it. He would be with Azula and Ty Lee. There was literally nowhere else he could possibly be. No logical explanation for him to be anywhere else. Sure, the other Lyoko Warriors would be looking for them. But even though Mai knew that Zuko loved that her loved with all his heart, there was no way he would leave Aelita and Azula alone. Not after he'd just gotten Azula back. Not after all Aelita had done for them.

No. Mai told herself, He's not here. She hung on to that thought as she began to dream.

She was escaping the Fire Nation. Her little brother, Tom-Tom on her back. She wasn't running in any particular direction. Just away. She had to leave. She and her friends had committed treason and for treason there was, but one penalty. Death. She didn't know why she had chosen to bring Tom-Tom along. After all, her parents wouldn't have missed her. She was nothing. The child they didn't want. The child they didn't notice. The child that was an ornament to sit and be quiet while they looked rich and powerful. But their son was different. Tom-Tom was their sweet baby boy. Their perfect child. He was a child that they had waited for. And yet his sister loved him enough to take him with her when she fled. She didn't know why. Suddenly, Mai's mother was before her.

"Why did you do?" was she asked.

"Mom?" Mai could feel her voice shaking. There was no way. No conceivable logical way her mother could be here. And yet she was.

"Do you want your brother to be kidnapped by slavers?"

"What?" Mai said, "No! Mom it's not like that."

"You think the Jedi will let him live if you betray them," her mother asked, "if they even think you've betrayed."

"I've proved myself!" Mai shouted, "I've proved myself time and again."

Mai's mother scoffed, "And yet they don't trust you. I don't think they ever will." She laughed ruefully and put her hands on Mai's shoulders, "Come home now, sweetheart." She said, "Lord Agram is waiting."

Xander awoke from a troubled sleep. Someone was coming. Someone was coming for him and the others here.

No, the others. Xander reminded himself. Yes, there were other Lyoko Warriors coming, but it wasn't for him. He wasn't one of them. He was one of the Enemy. One of the Dark Side. He had fought beside the Sith Kids. He had killed. He was cloned bond made up by XANA. A golem. Not a true living thing. He was no one. Nothing. He wasn't a Lyoko Warrior. No, they couldn't. They wouldn't be looking for him. For whatever reason, Xander hung on to that thought as he drifted off to sleep.

Xander dreamed of Caiera again. He was standing over as she died. The Blaster shot that killed, burning a small hole in her thin, gray chest. She was looking at him with deep gray eyes as she died.

"Don't do this to me." Xander heard himself pleading, "Caiera, please. Don't die!"

"You did this." Caiera answered, blood streaming from the wound in her chest, "You killed me."

"NO!" Xander yelled, "I didn't it was Eon Gunray."

And yet, he knew that she spoke the truth. Her death was his fault. His doing.

"Y-you're just like them." Tears fell from Caiera's eyes, "You're a monster. Just like your father. Just like all your friends. YOU'RE EVIL! THERE IS NOTHING BUT DARKNESS IN YOUR HEART!" She coughed for a moment, more blood falling from her mouth, "You'll forget."

"I won't!" Xander cried, "I love you."

"But what about your other love," Caiera laughed bitterly until it devolved into a hacking cough, "Your new girl? Don't you love her too? What's her name again? Jess? Will she go the same way as me?!"

"NO!" Xander cried, "No! I….."

But Caiera's head fell back and she was dead.

Jess's awakening was sudden. She was honestly surprised that she could sleep at all. She had hated the Sith for so long. Ever since they had murdered her mother and her father and her little brother, Zorro. She had come to Salem solely for the sake of killing the man responsible, Harold Stern. She wasn't supposed to become a Lyoko Warrior. She wasn't supposed to be some sort of hero. And yet she did. And yet she was all of a sudden. And now she could sense them. The Lyoko Warriors had come. They'd come to save them. But did they? What if they weren't here to save them? Or what if at least they weren't there to save Jess and Xander? The thought echoed in Jess's head like a bass drum. Xander wasn't a member of the Enemy, but he thought he was. He hated himself and some of the others were willing to hate him. It didn't matter that he was kind or gentle. It didn't matter that he was one of them.

No. Jess told herself, They love Xander. They've always loved Xander. We're Lyoko Warriors. We've always been. We'll stand together. Jess was surprised at own empathy for Xander. The son of a man, while a creature who worked with her parents' killers. Even if she was in love with him. She reflected on this as she drifted off to sleep.

She was sitting on the steps outside her parents' house, the very place she'd been right before they'd found their bodies. She was eight years old again. Her hands trembled as she reached out to touch the door knob. Turning it slowly, she stepped back, waiting to see her parents' dead bodies at the table. Instead, all she saw was an eight-year-old boy in a night shirt. A boy with the same red hair and blue eyes as Jess.

"Zorro?" But it couldn't be. Zorro was dead. He'd died when he was eighteen months old. She'd seen the blood flowing into the sink.

"Why did you choose him? Jessie." Zorro asked, "Why'd you pick him instead of me?"

"I didn't choose anyone." Jess said, "Xander was hurt by the Sith just like you."

"He wasn't hurt as bad as me." Zorro said, "And anyway he's of the Darkness. He deserves it."

"That's not true." Jess said, "You have to know that that's not true."

"But it is." Zorro paced the room, "The Lights or the Darkness, Jessie. We all have to choose. So him or me?"

"But I lost you…." Jess could feel tears in her eyes, "I lost you long ago."

"But you didn't." Zorro said, "You just let yourself think you did. It's too late for Mom and Dad and it's too late for your boyfriend. But you can still save. All you have to do is give Xander up."

Yumi Ishyama's awakening was sudden and she wasn't entirely sure of the prescience she felt. It seemed like there were people there. Fellow Lyoko Warriors. They were there. She knew that they were there.

They came for us. Or at least they came for her and the other Lyoko Warriors, but not for Ulrich. It was a hard truth and to make it worse Yumi knew why. Ulrich had been Darth Adolfus. It mattered little to nothing that he wasn't anymore. After all, he'd put her in the coma. He'd tried to cut Larana's leg off. He'd tried to kill them on multiple occasions. It didn't matter that that wasn't him. Some of the things he'd done, that Adolfus had done, were unforgivable.

But somehow, Yumi reflected, I do forgive him. It was strange of course. She was very confident that no one would ever fully get it, but that was at the core how she felt and no one, no one would convince her otherwise. She knew that now. Perhaps, this was because she'd only ever known Ulrich as Ulrich and never as Adolfus.

Or perhaps. Yumi reflected as she began to doze off, That's love. It's because I love him.

Yumi was trapped. She was standing in a shower. The water was boiling hot. She filled her hands with shampoo and tried to wash it through her black hair. But the water was too hot. Too hot. Yumi's skin felt like it was on fire. Reaching through the hot water, she tried to turn the faucet. To make it cool again. But the faucet broke off in her hand. Water blasted her in the face. Filling up her mouth. Her eyes. Her ears. But it wouldn't fill her lungs. She wouldn't let it. She reached out. Without touching it, she reconnected the faucet to its perch. She was using telekinesis. But she wasn't on Lyoko. Not that it mattered. The faucet snapped. And then he was standing there. Tall and in his dark robe. The cropped dark brown hair. The scar over his right eye. Darth Adolfus.

"You're weak." He said softly, "So weak. Not to mention stupid."

He chuckled darkly.

"I can't belief you actually thought that I loved you."

"Ulrich." Yumi's voice was shaking.

"Not Ulrich." He said darkly, "There is no Ulrich! THERE NEVER WAS!" A tall blonde girl appeared beside him. Yolanda Yewbeam. She leaned against him. Kissed his cheek.

"Only Adolfus." Then Ulrich reached out. Yumi was choking. Choking and choking and choking. Her lungs were filling with blood. Being crushed. The boy she loved was strangling her to death.

Benjamin Brown awoke in a fog. He sensed that someone was here, but he wasn't sure who. Some of his fellow Lyoko Warriors, but not Charlie. Or Jacen. Benjamin didn't know exactly why he specifically wanted Jacen Solo or Charlie Bone, but he knew that he did. Perhaps because he knew them best, or because they were the closest with him. Benjamin also wanted Runner Bean. Yes, he was sure that he wanted Runner Bean. After all, he loved his dog. It seemed that Runner always knew what to do, who to trust. Benjamin Brown trusted his dog more than he did most people. Almost more than he did anyone.

But will Runner love me now? Benjamin wondered, they had changed him somehow. Done something to make something other than what he was. But now, Benjamin didn't know what he was. And wasn't sure he would like it if he did. After the potions and things they'd stuck into him. These things had changed him and wasn't sure how. He thought of that as he drifted off to sleep.

Benjamin was traveling with Runner through an endless maze of hedges and trees. It was a small place. Quiet. Safe. Benjamin felt safe here. Like he always felt safe when Runner was nearby. He could trust Runner. Runner would be there for him. No matter what happened. No matter where it happened. Benjamin could count on Runner Bean to be there and stand beside him. But the trees reached out. One of the branches wrapped around Benjamin's ankle and lifted him, upside down into the air. Runner was barking and grabbing, biting deep into the branches of the tree. Benjamin grabbed at the tree with his bare hands, he tried to free himself. Slowly, but surely he dug his figures deeper into the bark. Prying the branches away from his ankle. Pulling himself free. Soon, he was on the ground. But then Benjamin realized that he couldn't put his arms down. He tried to move towards Runner Bean, but he couldn't move his feet. And Runner was barking, loudly aggressively. And when Benjamin looked close enough he realized why. Benjamin Brown was not Benjamin Brown anymore. He wasn't human anymore. Benjamin Brown was a tree.

Fidelio Gunn awoke just as suddenly and his sense that someone was here was even vaguer than Benjamin's. There were times that Fidelio was quite sure he didn't belong with the Lyoko Warriors. After all, he wasn't Force Sensitive. He wasn't Endowed. Fidelio Gunn had few special powers. Few gifts. He wasn't a Child of the Red King. He didn't have any special powers or abilities other than being an exceptionally gifted musical genius.

Can't say that anymore. Fidelio thought bitterly. Even though that wasn't strictly true. But still, Fidelio felt like a freak. He'd been prodded and pinched and filled with something that had changed him. And now Fidelio Gunn didn't feel like Fidelio Gunn anymore. He didn't feel like the fourth of eight children. He didn't feel like the star child, the genius whose music surpassed even that of his rock star-to-be eldest brother, Felix. He felt like something wholly different from even the other Lyoko Warriors. Someone who'd been cursed to never properly belong among them again.

As Fidelio fell asleep, he dreamt that he was standing onstage at the Met. Looking out over a large, beautiful crowd. Violin and bow in hand, Fidelio played. His music flew through the air, dazzling everyone, everyone who could hear it before them. He made it loud and perfect, so everyone could hear.

Then there was a shout, "Look at him. Look at the Freak."

Fidelio couldn't speak, he looked at his hands and realized that he wasn't holding either his violin nor his bow. The music still played, but it wasn't Fidelio Gunn who was playing it. Or perhaps he was. Fidelio wasn't sure. He was making music, but it wasn't with his violin. Instead, he was playing with simply his hands and the air. And everyone was laughing at him. And then they weren't laughing anymore. They were frowning. Clutching torches and pitchforks. And storming the stage. Tearing it limb from. And taking Fidelio with them.

Olette hated the sound of heart rate monitors. And she hated the smell of Anti-Septic. In general, Olette just plain hated hospitals and every last thing they stood for. And this was worse than any hospital. The Separatist Doctors here (if doctors they were) had stuck with needles filled with nasty liquid with names she couldn't pronounce if tried and God-alone-knew what else. Literally, everything about this situation was wrong. And now, Olette would be wrong too. She'd injected with something, she didn't know what that would make her wrong. Or worse had already made her wrong. Given her a power wasn't meant to have. And now, Olette sensed people here. People meant to save her. People who didn't know she couldn't be saved. People who didn't know that had become wrong. And she had become wrong.

Or perhaps, Olette thought, I've always been wrong. She reflected on that as she drifted off to sleep.

Olette was walking through Twilight Town with her younger brother, Garrick. Garrick was almost ten. Everyone was looking at them. Staring. But no one was greeting them. Or smiling. Then Garrick ran ahead suddenly. Olette tried to follow him. But he kept moving. Kept running. Olette tripped and fell. It was only then. When the townsfolk fell on her, crowded her and hoisted her to the mirrored streets, that Olette realized that her brother. Her own brother. Garrick. Was in fact running away from her. Because she looked into the mirror. Olette saw that no one was looking back at her.

Mallory Grace heard someone in the distance call out. A part of her knew or at least hoped that it was help, but another more practical or perhaps more cynical part told her that it couldn't be help. Why would it be? No one even knew they were gone. But people did know. The other Lyoko Warriors would. And the Jedi. There was no reason they wouldn't send help.

Except there are a thousand reasons. Mallory thought, though she could only think about two. And their names were Ulrich aka Darth Adolfus and Xander aka the Son of XANA. They were the enemy. Or at least everyone thought of them as the enemy. Or almost everyone. But to Mallory, that didn't matter. She didn't trust them. She couldn't trust them. Her father's betrayal had taught her the dangers of trusting people who had long since proven themselves unable to be trusted. For that same reason, Mallory had during this time taught herself not to trust her own instincts. Or at the very least to question them. They'd been wrong too many times. So, no. Just because Mallory's instincts told her that help was coming didn't mean she could trust them.

I have to figure out a way to get out and get the others out on my own. Mallory told herself, I can't trust my instincts because I can't trust anything about myself. Not anymore.

Mallory was walking through the woods outside her house. She was walking slowly. She could see Faeries. Some of them wandering through the trees, some of them on the ground. Some beautiful. Some grotesque. But they were all looking at her. Whispering. The disgusting little things were whispering. Once Mallory got close enough, he realized that they were whispering about her. Mallory came close to them as if to ask what the big idea was. But they didn't answer. Instead they scattered. They scattered as though there was some sort of monster in their path. Mallory tripped. It was then she noticed them. Her nails. They were long and elongated like those of a cat. Mallory caught her face in the lake. Her eyes were deep yellow and her ears, they'd been replaced by pointed cat ears that stuck up. Her teeth were long and shiny white. She was a freak and a monster. There was a sound. It sounded like someone clapping their hands. Mallory looked. It was Adolfus, he was clapping and he was smiling, "That's what you get." He said his grin as wide as his face, "For trusting me."

Pence Bradley awoke struggling against his bonds. They were hot as coals and hurt like a vice. Pence counted to ten and tried to remember the past day. He knew that he'd been abducted, along with several of the others and he knew that he'd been trapped here. And now he knew that there other Lyoko Warriors nearby. Pence wasn't quite sure how he knew, but he did. But he couldn't quite tell if Hayner and Roxas were among them. Not that it mattered. Pence was honestly surprised that they were coming at all. He knew how the Lyoko Warriors worked, how they hung together through thick and thin, but there was still a pragmatic part of his mind that it hard to believe that people like them or anyone really would risk their lives for him. Sure, Pence was good with computers and good with legends. He was polite, approachable, the kind of person who could find out everything about anyone, anywhere. In Twilight Town, learning things that no one else did had been Pence's thing, his special skill, his superpower. But still, he was useless in a fight and the fight they'd just been in showed there was war coming. Pence knew who'd been taken too. The Unendowed Lyoko Warriors, the one who wouldn't be any help if there was a war. The useless ones. No, that wasn't entirely fair, Pence may have been useless in a fight as were Benjamin and Fidelio, but Mallory certainly wasn't. Neither was Mai. Or Olette. But still, this wasn't a fight for the weak ones. Anyone could that. And then there was Ulrich, who had been Darth Adolfus, their enemy. And Yumi who loved him. And Xander, XANA's son. And Jess, who loved him and always defended him. Everyone who was taken had been a weak link. And so, as sure as Pence had been that there were other Lyoko Warriors there, he was also sure that were not, because there was no one they could come for who was any use.

Pence dreamed of the day his father had kicked him out. He'd just come out to his family. Pence's two older sisters, Mila and Minni had been supportive as they always were. His mother had nodded as though it was just some random nonsensical announcement. The Old Man, however, had been pissed. He'd hit Pence in the face with a heavy law book and grabbed him roughly by the collar.

"That's rubbish." Pence's dad was an old money Twilight Town lawyer, new things weren't his thing and he'd always resented his only son for not being the proper man's man. Pence spat blood from his mouth.

"It's not rubbish, dad." Pence said, "I'm gay. I've always been gay. You can't change that."

"I don't need to change that," His dad said, "There are people who can change that."

"NO!" Pence pushed his father away, he knew about the kids who were sent to the Brothers of Love. Knew what happened to them. There was no way, he was going through that.

"It's that or the street, boy" The Old Man said, "Take your pick."

"Pence, please," his Mother said, "Do as your father says."

"NO!" Pence repeated, pushing the old man off him again. Suddenly he was stronger than he realized. He was gripping the Old Man by the throat. The Old Man was choking, breathing heavily.

"Pence!" His mother cried.

He barely heard her. He let the Old Man go, but he went too fast. Pence threw him. He was too strong. He threw his father right into the fridge. There was a breaking of equipment and the Old Man lay looking up at Pence dead-looking eyes, "I always knew there was a Darkness, in you, boy."

Scaling the barbed wire fence was easy enough. If one was able to look past the fact that it was electrified. The Battle Droids were quite easily dispatched. The Heartless, not so easy. But none of that was what disturbed Zuko. What disturbed Zuko was that they had been traveling for multiple hours and they'd yet to encounter a single booby trap nor a single sentient Guard. They had also failed to find a single door leading anywhere. Not because there weren't any doors leading anywhere useful. It was that they weren't any doors at all, guarded or otherwise. Zuko groaned, in annoyance, and although he'd never admit, fear. There was something wrong about all this.

"I don't get it!" Zuko complained, "We've been walking for hours and we haven't found anything."

"Except Clankers," Ben grinned, "And Heartless."

"I think we're lost," Nakin said, "It feels like we're going in a circle."

"That wouldn't explain the lack of doors," Tahiri pointed out.

"Maybe there aren't any doors," Caleb observed, "Maybe it's all an optical illusion."

"Or maybe we're under some sort of spell," Zuko said, "So we don't doors, that are there."

"Either way," Nakin said, "There's a weird prescience like something is trying to get out of this place."

"Yeah," Ben said, "I feel it too."

"Me three," Tahiri said, "It's like there's somebody calling and I know the voice, but I don't know who it is."

"Well, that's just great," said Zuko sarcastically, "There's someone here but we might be walking around in circles."

"Jeez," Ben said, "Who says we're walking around in circles," He leaned against a wall, "I'm sure we'll find our way eventually." And as though heeding Ben's words, the wall, slowly but surely opened.

The opening of the wall was slow, but it also sudden and its slowness seemed to imply, though Zuko dared only for a moment to hope otherwise, that something was coming out of it. That something was a battalion of soldiers. But not just any soldiers. These were Drones, Clone Trooper outfitted with Droid technology. These creatures were devised by Darth Sidious when he was still Chancellor Palpatine, when he realized that quite a few Clone Troopers would be willing to find ways to go against the brutal Order 66 which would have made them kill every Jedi Palpatine didn't need any alive. It helped that the order made a point of treating the Clones as living, sentient, individuals and even gave them their freedom and non-military work following the Clone Wars. So Palpatine chose a handful of Clone Troopers who were more bloodthirsty. More arrogant. More monstrous. And he befitted them with enough technology to see to it that they would do whatever he said. And now a battalion of them were looking the kids straight in the face.

Tahiri, Ben and Nakin drew their Lightsabers. Caleb reached into his pack for his father's bow. Zuko toted the twin blades his uncles had made for him and ignited the blades in a fiery blaze. The largest Drone Trooper, a scarred fellow who was at least six, maybe seven feet tall, grinned evilly and brandished a hand cannon. He licked his lips in anticipation. Tahiri jumped forward Lightsaber blazing. The Drone's cannon went off and she just barely managed to dodge. Nakin jumped too, engaging a hulking drone with a sword for an arm. Ben rolled to the ground, brandishing his Lightsaber against a red-haired Drone with grappling hooks attached to his hands and feet. A burst of energy came out from a cannon mounted on a shirtless Drone's shoulder, Zuko parried it, but not easily. There was an explosion somewhere, Zuko didn't need to look to know that Caleb had a shot an arrow at that last Drone Trooper, the one with the bomb in his eye. The battle had begun. There was no going back now.

"Hey, Freaks!" Tahiri threw herself forward on the Hand Cannon again, "Ready to fight."

Zuko was impressed by her confidence. Not to mention surprised she was able to see the Drone with the Hand Cannon at all or that matter how he knew that even happened. The Smoke Bomb from that one Drone Trooper's eye had practically blinded him. Zuko could see no one. None of the Drones, and none of his allies. His vision was blurry at best. Especially in his scarred eye. Contrary to popular belief, Zuko Chiron was not entirely blind or even blind at all in the eye that his father had scarred when he was thirteen years old. However, here and now, he could not see through the bad eye at all. Being caught up in a smoke bomb would do that to you. With his swords and some of his Firebending, Zuko struck out against shapes in the darkness. He couldn't think, could barely breathe. And still he struck out. He wasn't sure who was fighting. He wasn't sure what he was fighting. But he still struck out. That is, until he felt a jolt of electricity going into the back his neck.