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"Well, seeing as it was designed for a pilot, co-pilot, and 1 extra person, who usually was the spy we were dropping off, I'd have to say it's 1 person to small."

"Déshawn and I can share a seat," Raena offered.

"Perfect," Trance said with an evil grin at my red cheeks.

"When do we leave?" I ask.

"Now."

As Trance's optically cloaked ship soared towards Coruscant, I suddenly felt a twinge of nervousness that surprised me. I'd never had any slight anxiety when heading into a mission, but this one was completely different from every other adventure I'd been on. I was going against an enemy that had the power to take over the Jedi Council, except for Yoda, and I wasn't sure what kind of obstacles I would have to face. And I was also worried about the effect the Serum would have on me if I were to be spotted during our fight to shut the machine down.

"Calm down Déshawn," I heard Raena whisper in my ear.

"What?" I asked dumbly, caught off guard.

"You're breathing is shallow, and you're starting to sweat," she said. "You need to relax."

"I know," I said self-consciously calming my breathing. "But facing an enemy that can take the Jedi Councils mind is nothing to take lightly."

"I'm scared to," she said. "But I'm more afraid of what will happen if we don't face them."

At these words I looked at her, and realized that I'd never heard anything worded so effectively. The repercussions of not taking on Count Popsomuo would result in far more dire consequences. The ship shuddered slightly as we made our descent into a thick, forest. The 4 of us all walked out of the ship quietly, my mind gently immersing itself into the Living Force. I felt my senses heightened, and my worries put to ease. The "clearing" we'd landed in turned out to be a wide pathway that seemed to be a single road with no turns.

"Which way?" I asked.

"East?" Shomari offered pointing ahead of us away from the setting sun.

"How'd you know?" Trance sounded impressed.

"That's the only direction this path heads," Shomari said.

"But it might be pointing the other way," Trance challenged.

"Look I'd love to hear you two clash wits any other time but this is sort of urgent. We might want to do this before he takes over the universe okay?" Raena interrupted.

I smirked and started along the path with Raena at my side, a disgruntled Trance and Shomari behind who seemed keen to finish their exchange.

"How do we know we're not being tracked right now?" Shomari asked suddenly.

"Raena." I said simply.

"What about her? I know she's not exactly eye candy but someone still might be looking," Shomari shot back.

"To put it in terms you can understand, if anyone looks through a scanner, none of us will be 'eye candy' to them." Raena retorted. "But if you'd want your good looks to show up on Popsomuo's radars, let me know."

This quieted Shomari's unneeded quips for a while.

We arrived at the edge of the woods, which was conveniently at the rear entrance to his palace.

"Security's gonna be tough here." Shomari said.

"No," Trance said slowly, eyes closed. "He's pulled most of them away hoping it'll bait a trap he has inside."

"What trap?" Raena asked.

"Not sure, but I personally would rather sneak past guards I can see." Trance responded.

"Agreed." Shomari said.

The 4 of us quickly creep along the wall, assured by Raena that's the safest place, and settle around the corner.

"I can't be affected, me and Raena will go," Trance whispered. "Don't need you two possessed, we need you for when we're deep inside."

"Wait, how quick does this thing power up?" I asked wanting to jump into the action.

"5 minutes, it'll takes us a lot longer than that to get in," Raena said instinctively.

"Then pick it up," Shomari urged them.

Shomari and I watched the pair move in quickly on the 4 guard robots, light sabers igniting suddenly, and in a flash of Raena's pink and Trance's green, they were thoroughly dismembered. Signaling for us to follow them in, we moved around the corner on light feet. I grabbed one of the droids guns and deposited it in my belt next to my light saber.

"So they can't tell I'm a Jedi immediately," I explained at the confused looks.

Everyone else followed suit and I smirked.

"I've never seen you handle a blaster Trance, sure you know how?" I teased.

"Hey, we aren't born Jedi's with a light saber," he chuckled.

We continue into the palace, looking around the extravagant halls in wonder. There are random paintings, all done by a different famous artist galaxy away, with expensive rugs stretching the length of the floor, with walls and floors of stones cut into large bricks. The rugs had a red and gold emblem that stretched the massive length of the rug, with the paintings on the wall separated by such exact precision it indicated a droids work.

"Wow, it's hard to believe there's Federation droids roaming around in here." Raena gasped.

"Where to?" I said.
Trance closed his eyes for a moment then he pointed up a staircase leading the way, his hand gripping his stolen blaster. The staircase spirals up, seemingly endlessly, until I feel a warm tingling on my right side causing me to stop.

"Wait."

With all eyes on me I close my eyes and try to interpret the warning. It wasn't a severe flash of danger, but more of a feeling that indicates I'm overlooking something. I turn to my right and put my hand on the wall moving them around slowly. In my mind I see a heavy metal door behind the stone, but I had no idea why I was sensing this.

"What's this for?" I asked aloud as if that would get me my answer.

"What's what for?" Shomari said impatiently.

I pulled out the blaster and tapped the stone with it, the hollow echoes told everyone what I saw.

"Back up."

The simple command gave me plenty of space before I fired of 3 rounds that blasted the rock away revealing a vault like door behind it. Trance gave a low whistle, and Shomari let out a sort of snort.

"So what's behind here?" Trance turned to the group.

"It's obviously important or I would've walked by it without sensing its location." I pointed out.

Shomari pushed past me and twisted the door handle, and unsurprised found that it was locked. He pulled out his light saber and ignited the blade.

"We don't want to leave signs of Jedi work around here," I pointed out.

"And I don't want signs of a rebounded bullet around my face." He retorted.

Plunging the blade into the thick steel, the door turned a bright red and orange, the heat bounced off of my face and made me start to sweat. He dragged the blade in a large circle, cutting a giant hole in the door. He waited a few seconds to let the heated metal to cool down before attempting to kick it in. But he bounced off almost falling.

"Figures, the door is thicker than my light saber is long," he caught himself and looked perplexedly at the door.

Raena held her hands up to the door, causing it to rattle, shake and vibrate, then the slice that Shomari cut out of the door floated down the stairs and stopped at the edge of my line of sight and stood straight up and down barricading the way. Then, as Shomari put his black blade away, Raena igniter her pink blade and cut the rest of the way through the door.

We walked into a large laboratory; it was nothing like the previous areas we'd been in. The stone gave it a medieval look to it, but the complex machinery and bubbling solutions showed that it was most likely ahead of it's time by a few decades. Looking around I saw there were automated robots operating everything but no droids to worry about. I re-centered my mind in the force and scanned the room for dangers or anything that might give us trouble. Finding it all clear I walked a head slightly wondering what we should be doing in here. My mind fought to find an answer, and I was oddly drawn to the potions on a particular counter. I looked at the labels and found that most of them were poisons, such as cyanide, liquid carbon monoxide, and the like, until I reached the last one. Inside was a strange purple bubbling fluid, and I couldn't take my eyes off of it.

"Déshawn?"

"This vial, there's something important about it, I can tell." I said halting all questions.

"This table is full of poisons, why would this one interest you," Raena asked persisting her course.

"Because, look at the others…not a hint of purple in it," I pointed to the other vials in a vague manner. "What can you tell me about this Trance?"

He walked up to it slowly and read the label with a shocked look and dropped jaw. "This can't be it can it?"
"The pronouns aren't working for me," Shomari interrupted.

"The antidote to the Serum! It was supposed to be a myth! That's how Popsomuo got it to work without dying," Trance was suddenly excited.

"Wait? The Jedi that use it die?" I said incredulously.

"Yes, and that's what's puzzled me for so long. How he killed the Jedi before he could harvest their Force to power the weapon automatically."

"You need to start telling us this before we come here." I grabbed the small vial and offered Shomari a sip of it. "There isn't a lot of it but it should help at least."

"You get the first bit, Déshawn." He said in a heroic sort of voice.

"Stop being retarded and drink some, I'm gonna get some to." I pushed it at him again.

"Fine." He reluctantly snatched the vial from me. Then he sipped a little bit of the potion then handed it quickly back to me. "Hurry up and finish it off."

"Alright, no rush needed," I said in a nonchalant tone as I drank the rest of it the purple liquid.

Flashes of intense heat on my right side interrupted the slight tingling that spread from my mouth throughout my body, where Raena happened to be standing. I turned to warn her, but realized she'd become very scarce all of a sudden. I ignited my light saber confident of the protection of the potion, turning towards the patrol of droids that had come into the room. I moved into action quickly and aggressively, almost hungry for the battle, with sharp, crisp jabs and slices I'd cut the first one into several pieces before I the rest put away their blasters for the same new weapon as the last droid I'd killed back in one the Federation's ship: a low powered light saber. I smirked at the 10 droids and beckoned them all, despite my shock and slight fear. Trance's green blade cut down one of the droids quickly, while Shomari ignited one of his shortened black blades, and Raena's pink blur was seen responsible for the death of several droids.

"Where the hell did they get those?" Trance asked as he growled killing two droids.

"Federation," I said as I used a wall of force to crush another one.

Deuce spun into motion polishing all off the droids without much resistance.

"And it shocked me even more then," I said.

"Well then," an unknown voice hissed from the corner. "Allow me to show you who gave them their wonderful weapons."

"Cunae!" Shomari's voice was suddenly sharp as well as dangerously close to matching Taelin Cunae's tone.