Ben's eyes opened and he looked at every person in the room. "Are we ready to begin?" Ben asked.
"One question first." Siri spoke. "What were you doing before? You weren't meditating."
Ben smiled. "Nothing that anyone should be concerned about. Are there any more questions?" When no one spoke, Ben nodded his head. "Good. Now let's gather into a circle. Reeft, stand next to Siri, Siri, next to Obi-Wan, Ferus next to Obi-Wan, and then Anakin you will stand next to Ferus." Ben stood between Reeft and Anakin and noticed a brief exchange of glares between Anakin and Ferus. "In order to begin, everyone must clear their minds and close their eyes. Imagine that there is a small flame in the darkness and focus on it. Now, everyone hold hands with the person next to you." Through the Force Ben sent Anakin information about what to do while he continued to give instructions to the others.
Anakin concentrated hard, fighting to keep himself centered and not think about the fact that Ferus was going with them on this mission. Drawing on the Force, he mentally spoke some ancient words and then just let himself fall into the grasp of the Force. He felt himself falling…falling…and falling. The air around him roared and a strong wind swept past his face. It grew cold and then hot, the air smelled foul and then smelled sweet. The wind began to calm into a gentle breeze and then he heard the sound of birds chirping.
Slowly Anakin opened his eyes and saw that they were in a green meadow, and in the distance was a vague outline of what looked like a Temple. Anakin release Ferus' and Ben's hands and backed up as he continued to look at his surroundings.
Ben breathed in the hot, sweet smelling air and smiled. He was home. At least close to home. It felt right, but didn't feel right at the same time. What was broken had not yet been fixed. "We are here. We should move quickly. The dark one will find us eventually, but hopefully the fact that I time jumped will throw him off for awhile." Ben looked at Anakin and Ferus who had moved even further away from each other. He narrowed his eyes as he spoke to them. "Anakin and Ferus, I would like to speak with you in private."
Anakin and Ferus glared at each other and then followed Ben, careful to keep their distance.
Siri watched them go with a frown on her face. "A child shouldn't be leading this mission, nor should be allowed to boss people around."
Obi-Wan shrugged his shoulders. If he looked older, you would think differently. He has different memories of times and places we know nothing about and he has time jumped multiple times. Mentally he is older than his body."
"Still, I don't trust him." Siri responded.
Reeft stood next to Obi-Wan and watched Ben disappear from view into a forest. "Did I ever tell you guys how much I love a good mystery?"
Siri and Obi-Wan looked at Reeft and Reeft smiled.
"Of course I did. In every mystery there are facts that need to be found and put together. In this case, we are dealing with a boy who is a mission that he keeps failing at, he timejumps, there is a planet where he has been timejumping from, and now, here we are in a different time and place, but there is a fact that no one except me and possibly Ben have noticed so far?"
"What fact is that?" Siri asked.
"The Force is cold and quiet." Reeft responded in a grave voice. "To quite."
Ben led them through the woods and into a small clearing and sat down on a log. "Sit down next to each other. It's hard to speak to only two people when one is on the far left and the other is on the far right." Ben firmly told them.
Anakin and Ferus grudgingly sat down next to each other across from Ben and looked at him, waiting.
"Both of you are acting like children. I'm not sure what issues you both have with each other, but it needs to be resolved in order to ensure the success of this mission." Ben paused, letting that sink in. "During the jump I remembered part of a memory from the original timeline. Both of you were best friends in that one. We all need to work together, we all need to trust each other. Now, I have an assignment for both of you. To the north of here is the Jedi Temple, about an hour walk. I need both of you to gather information about the events that occurred on the planet I spoke of and to find out what has happened since then."
Ben stood up and they did the same. "I would suggest that both of you try to resolve your differences during the walk there. We will meet back here in the clearing in four days."
"What will you and the others be doing during that time?" Anakin asked.
"We'll be going into town to stay on the lookout for the dark one." Ben answered. "May the Force be with you."
Anakin and Ferus watched Ben leave and then they also headed out of the woods and then headed north. They walked in silence for about half an hour before one of them spoke.
"Why are you back? I thought you had left the Order for good." Anakin asked.
Ferus shrugged his shoulders, refusing to look at Anakin. "When I came to Coruscant to do some business a couple of days ago, I had no plans to go near the Temple, much less go inside."
"How did you find out about the mission?" Anakin questioned after a minute of silence.
"I had a little run in with Ben. He was outside the Senate building waiting for someone and he spotted me. We had an interesting conversation. Before he left with a senator, he asked me to stay on Coruscant for a couple more days." Something about him drew my curiosity so I decided to stay on Coruscant for a while longer. Earlier today, I think as he was heading to the meeting, he contacted me through the Force and told me to go to Yoda's quarters and wait outside the door." Ferus explained. "I was going to refuse, but I felt the Force leading me to go do so."
Anakin frowned. "I'm starting to think that Siri is right that there is something amiss about Ben. He knows more then he is letting on."
"So do you. Is it just me or is there a small resemblance between the two of you?" Ferus asked.
"He is from an alternative universe and a different timeline." Anakin reminded Ferus before adding. "Yes, there is a small resemblance. Apparently in his alternative universe, he's my grandson."
Ferus looked at Anakin, his eyes wide. "Your grandson? But, Jedi are not supposed to have attachments. You're not married are you?"
"No, I'm not married." Anakin responded.
Ferus snorted. "Not yet. I know you, Anakin, you just love to break rules."
"And you love being terribly strict." Anakin retorted. "Not only do you follow the code perfectly, but you invent other rules as well. In other words, you are a legalist."
"And I'm proud of it! And if you were too then your anger wouldn't have gotten the best of you and Darra would not have died!" Ferus snapped.
Anakin stopped walking and turned to face Ferus. "Well maybe you should have double-checked the lightsaber after you repaired it! Being that you are a legalist, I'm surprised that you did not have a rule about double-checking your work! The fault is yours and you know it!"
Ferus glared at Anakin and he felt anger begin to boil within him. "No it wasn't! You should have said something when I was fixing Tru's lightsaber!"
"Oh? The 'perfect' padawan needed to be told to double-check his work?" Anakin responded is a sarcastic tone of voice. "Well look at it this way. What if I had no idea that you had made another repair to Tru's lightsaber?"
"Blast it, Anakin! The point is that you knew!" Ferus shouted.
Anakin tried to release his anger into the Force, but it just exploded into more words. "You should have still double-checked your work! Your overconfidence in your skills killed Darra!"
"How many people have died because of your anger!" Ferus responded. "How many times have you felt guilt because of their deaths!"
Anakin had the sudden urge to clobber Ferus, but instead marched angrily away from him.
Ferus stormed after him, intent on voicing what he thought. "You are blasted stubborn! Just because you are the so called 'chosen one' does not mean that you are right all the time!"
"You're not always right either!" Anakin shouted back, not breaking his pace or looking at Ferus.
Ferus and Anakin fell into a tense silence as they walked toward the Temple that was growing larger the closer they got. A couple of feet away they saw a young man sitting in meditation. When they got closer the young man came out of his meditation and looked up at them. The young man's eyes widened in shock and he scrambled to his feet.
"You're…you're…." The young man stuttered, still unable to believe what his eyes and the Force was telling him. "But how? You're both dead."
"We're from an alternative universe. We need to speak with the head of the order." Ferus spoke.
"Apparently since you know who we are, may we ask what your name is?" Anakin asked.
The young man quickly recovered his senses and made a short bow. "My name is Shifu, Shifu Skywalker, son of Kaleb Skywalker and Talia Olin. I will take you to Master Skywalker, my uncle." He turned and headed toward the Temple.
Anakin and Ferus briefly looked at each other, still stunned about who they had encountered.
"Well…" Ferus cleared his throat. "We are in an alternative timeline."
Anakin smiled, it was fun to see Ferus uncomfortable about something that went totally against his beliefs. "Hmm, I wonder who the lucky girl is?"
"We are in an alternative universe." Ferus repeated, but he couldn't keep a blush forming on his cheeks.
Anakin chuckled and followed Shifu. So Ferus did have a crush on someone. Interesting.
Ferus let out a heavy sigh and followed. This was going to be an interesting day.