The smell of sweaty alien flesh permeated all the stands at the bazaar, leaving Anakin nauseated as he made his way through the crowd, side by side with the tall, lanky, golden Ka. The whole of the great cavern in which this city was located was lit with a dull, blood-red light, which, though it flickered and wavered, lit all the area fairly evenly. Anakin searched this way and that for its source, but could not see it.

The pair was just passing a stall where a wrinkly old Dug was selling vegetables when Anakin's danger sense flared. He stretched out with the Force, feeling around him with his mind, but could sense no particular immediate threat. And yet the warnings in his mind grew louder and louder.

Suddenly, the air was filled with tiny creatures every color of the spectrum. They surged forward toward the young Jedi, sending him stumbling back to upset a stand at which a vendor was selling clear, faceted crystals. Some shattered as they tumbled to the stone below. As Anakin himself was knocked onto his back and the multicolored creatures surged across him, he arched his back and screamed in pain.

Every wound he had received in his encounter with the two-headed monster tore open, gushing blood onto the rock beneath him.

Anakin called the Force to him, wrapping it tight around him, increasing the pressure of the very air about his wounds, tugging at the cells of blood that coursed through his veins, bringing them to the skin to clot, and at the same time pulling the skin around the cuts tight so that it became harder for the blood to escape.

That was the idea, at least.

It was true that the Force flowed through everyone and everything, all the time, but a Jedi's connection with the Force was not a constant. When he wished to harness its powers, he opened himself to it and he and the Force were more strongly in union; inversely, he could if he needed to almost ignore it at other times unless it was trying to communicate something to him itself.

As Anakin drew the Force into himself, he felt the familiar tingling, warming sensation - but only for a moment. Suddenly, there was a great, gaping emptiness in him. He no longer possessed a connection to the Force.

Surprisingly clear-headed, the wounded Jedi assessed the situation. It didn't make any sense. It wasn't just that he couldn't tap into the Force's power. As far as he was concerned, it simply wasn't there. Its familiar flow no longer washed over him. It was the most alone, most horrific sensation he had ever experienced.

His masters at the Jedi Temple had taught him that separation from the Force could mean only one thing. But he wasn't dead, corporeal reality rushed on around him. Ka, frantic, was sweeping the tiny creatures from Anakin's skin with his four golden-furred hands. The stone of the cavern floor continued to press cold against Anakin. He was plainly alive.

The human man, bleeding so profusely that by all rights he should have been dead, slowly, shakily, stood. Ka leaped back, and the circle of onlookers that had formed around the spectacle let out a collective gasp.

Unsteadily, Anakin turned, surveying the crowd. His expression was fierce, and his face was very pale. He knitted his fingers together and scowled at them, muttering under his breath. No one could hear what it was saying, but Ka, standing nearest him, caught its dark, malicious tone.

Then, without warning, Anakin struck.

The Devorian he attacked was standing just inside the circle of watchers. Leaping toward him, Anakin kicked him in the stomach and then drove a palm into his face, shattering his flat nose. Spinning around, Anakin kicked high and with such strength that one of the horns atop the poor man's head cracked in two, the top half falling to the floor below.

Ka was at the crazed human's side in an instant. He wrapped his wiry legs around the Jedi's, immobilizing him. Binding Anakin's arms to his sides with his lower arms, the creature poked at the Jedi's neck with his upper two hands. Anakin gave a cry: "Vooo--" and then sank to the stone cavern floor, unconscious.

Ka surveyed the scene nervously. "Kaigring!" he exclaimed, staring in horror at the fallen form. Others in the crowd who understood his clicking speech took up the call: "Kaimem! The Invaders!"