At the same Bat-Time, same Bat-Channel... oops, wrong universe. ;) Welcome back to Twins where we are nearing the fic's conclusion. Thank you all for suspending disbelief and joining me in a galaxy far, far, away. All the usual disclaimers apply!

Twins, X
--sparkvallen

Within minutes of approaching the dwelling, the Jedi knew the main residence was deserted. Force sensing skills and the latest technology had a way of assuring that.

Mindful of a trap or set up, Jana crossed the threshold into the home with care. Kenjiro and Spark followed behind her, Kenjiro at the rear as the guard point.

Other than for a warning, the Jedi had agreed to limit communication of any sort to the minimum. They knew each other all well enough as it was to know what the other would need in order to anticipate. Spark fanned out to the left of Jana, checking the sitting room off the kitchen. Kenjiro moved to the right and glanced up the staircase to the upper floors.

He looked back and nodded silently. Spark and Jana nodded as well.

They slowly approached what Spark had said would be the entry point to the lower floor. Jana was quietly relieved to have had her on the mission since her personal knowledge of the region had been such an asset.

Jana depressed the button that would open the basement door.

Nothing!

The Jedi had planned for this contingency. Jana stepped back and Kenjiro approached the control panel for the door. One of his specialties was in technology and electronics. Though they'd never call him a "lockpick" as if he were a criminal himself, the Jedi Knight certainly had the technical skills to override the door's locking mechanism in a neat and efficient way. No lightsaber needed! he thought to himself.

In moments, the barrier whisked open to reveal the descending staircase. There was illumination which was fortuante as they'd decided that were the lights off, they weren't going to turn them on.

Spark led them down the stairs, moving cautiously, step-by-step. The descending stairs led them lower - she realized - than a normal basement would be in a dwelling. Growing up on Corellia and knowing its architecture had its advantages.

Through the Force, Jana and Spark could still feel the cries for help from the children who were so close by. Kenjiro could only faintly detect their energy being directed to the Jedi; somehow, they were targeting the two women specifically.

Spark stopped and peered as best she could through the gloom, trying to get a sense of the room the stairs stopped in. Her intuition said that this was the basement proper, despite it being so much lower than a normal one would have been built.

Up there! Jana signalled through the Force. Kenjiro and Spark followed the direction she'd sent to them, staring up at the slightest sliver of light in the ceiling.

Tricky, Spark thought. The actual basement was closed in. We bypassed it unknowingly to this false one.

Wordlessly, the significantly taller Kenjiro approached the drop-down section of the ceiling. Were they on the second floor of the home, this would've been access to an attic. He could have used the Force to pull the access point into reach, but the Jedi were concerned still about tipping off the manic dean of their presence.

Stretching to his tiptoes, Kenjiro just barely grapsed the handle and pulled the small staircase down.

HELP US!

Jana and Spark reeled at the intensity that the children shouted to them. Jana had bit her lip in surprise and frowned at the taste of her own blood in her mouth.

We have to hurry! she sent to them.

Kenjiro climbed the ladder first with the other two on his heels. They found themselves in a chamber with a low-ceiling. Spark realized this was the original basement to the home. A storm cellar. They were close then.

She pointed toward an even narrower tunnel that she could only sense through the Force. It wasn't even visible the way crates and boxes had been crammed into the tiny space.

With a nod of agreement on where to head next, they began climbing around and over the barriers toward the tunnel's entrance. This - they knew - would lead them toward the separate root cellar that was in the farm field itself. The cries across the Force of the kidnapped, tortured children grew more fervent the closer they came.

The tunnel's height forced them to crawl as quickly as they could. It would put them in an awkward defensive position if they'd already tripped off some alert, coming out crawling into their destination, but it couldn't be avoided.

HELP!

Spark gritted her teeth against the Force blast and willed herself to remain conscious. Kenjiro shifted some of his own energy toward Jana to help her remain alert.

The tunnel's mouth opened up near the ceiling of the chamber where the children were held captive. Peering out cautiously, Kenjiro could see there were cages holding children stretching to the ceiling across the room from him. He couldn't get close enough to see - but instead, sensed - that it was the same immediately below the opening.

We've come in a different way after all, he realized.

He leaned against the tunnel wall as far as he could so that Jana could slither forward to peer out. The room matched the location in her vision exactly. She dared not lean any further forward since they couldn't see the college dean in the room yet. On the ceiling, Jana could see the latch that would've opened the passage leading to the field.

Behind them, Spark began formulating how to get the children out safely. Like Kenjiro, she understood that they'd come in a different way than the dean evidently used. The route had been of service to them, but it'd be a deathtrap trying to hurry weakened and pained children through the tunnel and through the house itself, not to mention incredibly risky. The dean's route was unexplored and likely a trap as well. She glanced out the tunnel and toward that access hatch in the ceiling, thinking.

"Well, here you all are," boomed the human male voice. "As if you were going somewhere in my absence!"

The Jedi listened intently, crawling backward in the tunnel to avoid visual detection.

"My secretary says there are Jedi afoot on the campus! Looking for you, I'd imagine," he continued. "Not that they'd find you here, my Force sensitive little darlings!"

Jana cringed.

"No, no! You're safe here with me..."

Trouble, Kenjiro risked Force-sending to them. Still the closest to the mouth of the tunnel, he could see that the children across the room had spotted them. They were pointing and staring across to their hiding place. It would only be moments before--

"Oh!" came the cocky voice. "They have found you after all, have they? How foolish of me to think they wouldn't! Good Jedi that they are!"

The trio blended into their Force meld and jointly knew what they had to do. As always, the plan was to contain the oppressor since he would have to be dealt with directly rather than after rescuing the children.

You two get those children out! I'll handle him, Kenjiro sent.

Knowing this was the best plan with the Force link to the captives, the women nodded. Kenjiro inched forward in the tunnel, his lightsaber in hand. Spark wrapped her mind around the ceiling access and began to work its locking mechanism through the Force. At the same time, Jana - who was most familiar with the chamber itself - began silently unlocking each cage with the Force. She did her best to calm the children with her presence and urge them to wait for their signal.

Kenjiro landed lightly on the balls of his feet and quickly gained his balance. He stood not three meters from the college dean. He stood not three meters from the dean, silent.

"And there he is."

Without using the Force but injecting authority into his voice nonetheless, Kenjiro said, "This ends now. Let the children go free."

"Of course I will," he said easily. There was no sound of concern that a Jedi Knight stood in his hideaway at all. "I intend to. Once I am finished with my experimentation, of course."

Silently, the cage locks continued to slide aside. To the children's credit, they remained quiet and watchful of the scene before them, waiting as Jana had asked.

"You're violating so many laws that it would work much better for you to end this peacefully," Kenjiro suggested.

"Laws? Bah! There are no man-made laws that matter in the name of research! Come now, Master Jedi! Surely you understand that Force research is imperative to understanding our purpose! Our lives!"

Kenjiro glanced at the cages of children dubiously. "By kidnapping children and experimenting on them?"

"Well, it's not as though Jedi spring up everyday to volunteer!"

"Knowing about the Force - especially through these means - will not lead you to any deeper understanding of the Force," the Jedi Knight said evenly. "Any Jedi would tell you that that understanding and purpose comes from within. And only from within."

Above them, Spark had mastered the locking mechanism so that on cue, she could release the hatch.

"Ah, great philosophy, Master Jedi!" He sneered. "Research is my life and through these means, only then can I understand!"

He's gone mad. We have to act now.

To the dean, Kenjiro said, "These children do not hold the keys to your research on the Force. You will end this now."

"Like hell I will! You can't stop me!" he screamed. The dean pulled a blaster from his coat and took quick aim on Kenjiro.

His blue lightsaber flashed to life. This would be no easy task, Kenjiro knew. He'd have to deflect the blaster bolts in such a way that they did not ricochet back and hit the children! Taking each shot with precision, he deflected them into the floor.

The access point to the field swung open suddenly. Surprised, the captive children squealed at once. The dean swung his blaster around at the noise, preparing to fire on them in his panic.

Jana flung herself from the mouth of the tunnel, using the Force to propel herself toward him across the room. With an "oof!", her weight threw him to the floor. Kenjiro Force-pulled the blaster from his grip.

Kenjiro quickly came to her aid, helping secure the dean with binders with the cheers of the children ringing in his ears.

Spark carefully came down from the tunnel to join them. The children cheered again. She commed the local police to signal their location and that they'd found the missing children.

"We're secure now," Kenjiro said, standing up.

"Why don't we hold him where he's held the children?" Jana suggested. The older Knight was unsure of the look in her eyes as she said this, but Kenjiro couldn't deny that it would be a good way to keep him contained under the police arrived.

As Spark was already helping the kids from their cells, Kenjiro and Jaan led him into one and locked the cage. He shouted and stammered his protests and threats. Jana gave him one level stare and he fell silent.

Kenjiro said, "I'll comm Master Aaron to let him know the situation has been handled."

"You're all going to be fine now," Jana said to them. "We're having the police come to help us out of here and you can go home to your parents."

Breathing a sigh of relief, hearing the sirens already in the distance, Spark asked them, "How did you all manage to hone in on Jana and me? That is a very strong talent you have to call for help like that."

"You are heroines to us," one small boy explained. "We all know of Jedi Spark Vallen and Jana Vnukova of Corellia. Who else could save us but you?"

Spark and Jana exchanged confused looks.

"I'm not Corellian though," Jana admitted.

Another child - a girl - corrected her. "You grew up away from Corellia. But you are Corellian."

Jana's eyes widened. "What are you talk--?"

"Hello down there!" Everyone looked up to see the faces of their rescue team peering through the hatch. "Who would like to go home down there?"

The children giggled as they hadn't in months. "We do!"

As the rescue team began their task, and Kenjiro continued his update to the Council, Jana whispered to Spark, "Mystery upon mysteries, maybe there is more to our joke about being twins than we'd known!"

END