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I calmed my mind and pushed the dread out of my thoughts, and let the Force sensitize me to any impending danger. I felt my body grow slightly warm and a nearly involuntary vibration began to run through my muscles.

"What's wrong?" Johan looked at my muscle twitches.

"Everything," I told him. "Some great evil is at rest here, and I think the Kashill intend to utilize it."

"Should we check it out?" he asked me.

"Yes, if the Kashill release this...power, I fear I may not be able to stop it." I nodded to Johan.

"That would indeed prove disastrous." he said stepping into the Temple first.

The inside walls of the temple seemed to be covered with moss also, they had slight a slight green tint to them, as well as random splotches of blood. As we descended a spiral staircase that reminded me of the one at Popsomuo's old hideout, the warm sensation that was warning me of danger continued to grow. After a while, it got to the point where I gripped the handle of my light saber without drawing it, just as a precaution. We reached a landing and Johan began to open the wooden door, but I stopped him.

"Wait, let me go first. I think there's something waiting for us through there," I said stepping in front of him. "Ready your weapon."

He pulled out a large blaster that held a scope on the top of it for increased accuracy. I opened the door and stepped through, taking out my light saber without igniting it. My body was now extremely hot, screaming all kinds of warning dangers at me, but I couldn't see the danger physically. I scanned the room quickly taking in my surroundings. The room seemed to be a greenhouse of some kind, except it was taken to another level. There was a ominous silver mist that swirled around the floor heavily, hiding my feet from my view, and it rose thinly into the air making it hard to see. There were several trees scattered about the room, with dirt walls that rose about 50 or so feet into the air and curved slightly at the very top. The ceiling itself was open so that the night sky seemed to be the very roof of the artificial room.

"What kind of room is this?" Johan asked the very question that burned on my mind.

"I'm not sure, it's some kind of artificial forest. But there's a perfectly good forest outside, why make this twisted version of it?"
"It's some kind of giant terrarium," Johan gasped gripping his blaster tighter. "They're keeping some kind of monster in here."

"That's not good," I said. "This is like some kind of practice hunting ground."

There was a quick rustling of leaves behind us, and Johan spun around whipping his blaster up itno the air, ready to fire in an instant.

"It's a stealth hunter too," I observed at the constant rustling of leaves, or cracking of twigs indicating it's now sloppy movements. "It was just watching before, now it's prepping to kill us."

"Prepping?" Johan grunted as he tried to track the monster's rapid movements.

"Checking all the angles, trying to confuse us, and circling us to try and find a weak point." I explained. "From the bare spots in the tree leaves I'm guessing its an omnivore."

"Knowing the Kashill, they probably turned a powerful herbivore into some kind of twisted predator." Johan growled bitterly.

"You might not be far off," I said as I felt the monster stop circling us and halt directly in front of me. "Ah..he's chosen me; I seem the weakest because I have no weapon drawn."

"Poor creature," Johan smirked.

As if on cue a hairy monster suddenly hurled from the darkness at my face with a high pitched roar. I quickly noticed that it had no obvious sensory organs; as in no eyes, ears, or nose. However, I identified it's deadly mouth easily, as it seemed to glow in the darkness from the bright green rows of teeth. It had about 3 rows of teeth, each row consisting of about 50 thin, sharp teeth. From the opening of it's jaw, its bottom jaw seemed to be double jointed, as it opened in a very snakelike fashion. Otherwise, its blank face was mostly featureless, just sporting a dark grey fur like the rest of its body. However, on it's back they seemed to spike up in a porcupine-like fashion, with paws that seemed to mirror a bears. I ducked under the monster easily and spun to face it quickly. I felt a flash of heat run through my spine and I leapt into the air backflipping over another monster of the same genre that attempted to tackle my back.

"God there's more than one?" I asked suddenly worried.

"Guess you were wrong about them circling us." Johan grunted firing his blaster in defense.

"Not too far off on the prepping though. Only difference is the pack was getting in place," I laughed dodging another monster easily, suddenly wishing I'd been more aggressive and broken up their pattern.

I noticed Johan's blaster fire seemed to gradually slow down their relentless, but it didn't seem to cause any kind of damage. I pulled out my light saber, igniting the blue side, and prepared myself to see if I could kill one of the monsters. I saw one of the seven monsters circle around to charge at me like a bull. I extended my arm with my light saber and lined the blade up with its mouth. As soon as it was about six feet away I flipped to the side, leaving my light saber floating in the air where I'd lined it up before. The monster ran through the blade and came to a complete stop, my light saber, still floating, was now behind it. The monster gave a high-pitched screech fell to the ground.

"Johan, aim for their mouth," I told him.

"I don't think I need to," he sounded a little unsure of what to do.

I couldn't blame him, it seemed the pack of monsters cared for each other, for as soon as I'd killed one, the group attack became exclusively focused on me. I suddenly felt guilty for killing what seemed to be a loved member of their group, but I knew I had to protect myself.

"Don't worry about me," I grunted spinning away from another rush.

I noticed that they moved much like a bull and I soon learned that avoiding them wasn't the hard part; the hardest part of fighting them was that the pack had flawless timing, and I barely had a chance to return the attack before I had to duck another one. They never came from the same direction, so I didn't learn any pattern, just that I shouldn't commit to my attacks to much or I'd pay dearly. I flipped to the side away from yet another attack and just barely leaned backwards enough to duck the monsters as two leaped from opposite sides of my body. They crashed in the air and I saw my opportunity. In one smooth, curving flash of blue light, I'd cut the monsters heads off. I decided that four of the monsters were a lot harder than the seven I had just dealt with. For the four remaining dog-like demons took it up a notch and began to move with incredible speed. It quickly escalated to a point where all I could use to dodge the attacks was the flashes of heat warning me of danger to my life.

"Johan," I hopped over a low paw attempting to sweep me. "Distract one of them."

"Got it," he immediately cut loose with a barrage of startling accurate fire.

Normally, if anyone had fired with such, seemingly rapant, blaster fire into a group of enemies at which I was leaping and flipping around in, I would have been very uncomfortable. But Johan had the steady, pinpoint accuracy, of a surgeon droid. He hit only the monsters, and I noticed the shots were as close to the mouth as his angle would allow. After a while, he'd killed another one of them and I had to deal with only two of the monsters as one of them broke off to attack Johan. He easily nailed it several times in the mouth quickly disposing of it as I'd severed the last head of the monsters. I put my light saber back on my hip hurriedly and jumped onto one of the trees.

"Where are you going?" Johan asked.

"This ceiling isn't at the top of this fake temple, so I think we should check it out," I explained.

I used the force to bounce from the top of the tree to the ceiling's edge, I easily pulled myself up and stood on the thin ledge.

"Well?" Johan shouted from the floor of the fake forest.

"Nothing up here, just some thin ledge to walk on," I said disappointed.

"Well the at least we got rid of the Kashill's little pet," Johan said trying to cheer up my, seemingly disappointed mood. "So you don't have to worry about the 'great evil' that was about to be unleashed."

"No, we got rid of their pets. But whatever it was that I sensed, is still there. I fear it may be the creator, or some how, in control of them," I admitted.

"Oh. The Kashill have never had these kind of resources or weapons. They used to be just well-trained spies or other skills of the like." Johan sounded baffled. "Where are they getting all these dark powers from?"

I reached out with my mind seeking the answer to Johans question. I turned to him and told him the answer I found, "I don't know."

We were heading back to the ambassadors quarters to report our small adventure, and failure to acquire our needed information. We reached the door, and Johan entered the access code. I felt a sudden flash of heat go across the front of my body.

"Watch out!" I yelled a warning to Johan.

He leaped away from the door and I jumped to the side as an explosion sent the door flying past where Johan and I had just been standing.

"No!" I ran into the room, covering my face as I charged through the fire.

I looked around the ravaged room and tried to search for any sign of Raena and the ambassador. Raena is powerful, she wasn't killed, nor was the ambassador. I know that's for sure. The room's emergency systems came online and began to douse the fire, drenching the room in water. If the Kashill came here, they probably regret it I thought to myself. I saw the bed was collapsed so that the mattress now rested directly on the ground. The chair and table were knocked over, and two of the tables legs were broken off. One of the chair's leg seemed to have been taken out for what might have been an impromptu weapon. So the Kashill are resourceful. But a chair leg to battle Raena's light saber? It didn't make sense. Well, maybe Raena picked up my reluctance to draw my light saber unless absolutely needed, and decided to use the chair leg. No, it's too short to be as practical. I look around the room and found the missing chair leg sticking out of the wall.

"Whoever attacked Raena and the ambassador must have been very good with projectiles," Johan examined it. He pulled it out, and examined the end that was in the wall. "This was the end that was in the chair. He must have been losing pretty badly to be this desperate. No matter how hard he threw this, even to be stuck that deep in a wall, it wouldn't have caused anything worse than internal bruising."

"Knowing Raena, he never saw her coming." I said looking at the slashing burn marks on the walls, which indicated her light saber swings. "She attacked him from this corner. His back was to her, and she quickly disarmed him," I spoke as I examined the few slash marks in the one corner; judging their depth and length, I guessed what kind of swing she was using. I was lucky that she had been in such close quarters so she left marks from her swings. Or maybe she did it on purpose to let me know. "He got some shots off," I looked over two short, symmetrical, slashes that indicated a defense circle with her blade. "She blocked them, he probably fell over the chair after he got hit."

"That's when he took it out," Johan agreed. "Look, smoke pellet remnants, he must have escaped."

"She probably let him go, so she could get the ambassador to safety." I said. "But where to?"
"The back up headquarters, in case this very thing happened." Johan smiled knowingly.

"Lead the way." I held out my hand indicating his new role with a smirk.