A/N: I hope everyone is at home and staying safer than these idiots.

Aola tried not to look at the bodies of the prisoners they'd killed. She kept her eyes trained on the ones that remained, but most of them were too scared or too out of their wits to pose any immediate threat. Still, they seemed to quiver with instability, and the knight was not willing to allow them out of her sight for a moment.

"Can we not leave the way we came?" Aola asked as their uneasy ally strode around the dojo in frantic, haphazard patterns, searching for a latch that may or may not exist to a door that none of them could see.

"No," he shook his head, sounding equal parts resolute and terrified by the prospect. "No, no one who goes that way ever makes it out." He strode past Aola to the wall behind her; to what end, she could not say. "As soon as they can sense me, they'll come for me." He began feeling along the thanatosine wall, as though there were panels hidden in the rock that would spring to life at a touch.

"Who will?"

"The twins."

"The what?"

"It has to be here somewhere," the prisoner insisted, long hair tangling in his face and puffing away from his mouth as he spoke. "It has to be." He crossed the dojo again, this time going to where Ben was examining the wall near one of the cabinets of sabers. Digging his fingers around the cabinet's sharp edges against the wall, he yanked it from its anchors and shoved it to the floor, sending hilts scattering across the dojo. His fingers came away bleeding, but he didn't pause to see. He pressed his face near the wall to see in the dim light.

Ben knelt and took up one of the weapons, bringing it up to the light of his own saber to examine it. It looked well-used, and sported nicks in several places. In form, it was not dissimilar from his own. He held it up to his saber's blade.

"Aola," he said, and she hesitantly turned. He flicked his wrist and split the saber in two. He glanced at the prisoners to see if they'd react; nothing. "Destroy as many as you can," He told her. She followed suit, and the two Jedi set to work on the cabinets of sabers, sending sparks and saber shards flying. If the noise of their destruction bothered the captives cowering by their prison, it did not show. Their new friend, however, was growing more agitated by the second.

"Where is it— where is it?" He marched up to the last cabinet left standing, and pulled it from its moorings so forcefully it nearly fell on top of Aola.

"Careful!" she shouted, jumping away. In the indigo light of her saber, she could see the dark, wet finger trails he left on the cabinet and the wall. She looked at his hands and winced when she saw that his fingers and palms were smeared in a dark coat of blood, but he didn't seem to know or care. She looked at his eyes and saw the same hunger she'd seen in the eyes of the others. She retrieved one of the fallen hilts from the edge of the room, but as she lifted her saber to destroy it, something caught her eye.

"What's this?" she asked, almost to herself. There was a shape in the ground, inset into the thanatoshine floor, just at the edge where the dojo mats ended. Thinking it was a crack in the stone—a chance to escape this hell—she grasped it and pulled.

There was a loud, electronic whir, and then a sound like thunder erupted from the ground where Aola stood and travelled across the floor and up the walls. The prisoner's frantic scrambling beside Aola came to a halt, and his eyes darted upward. All other prisoners fell silent and still. The thanatosine shook, sending shards of shattered lightsabers rattling into piles.

"You found it," the man said, and looked up.

Daylight split the ceiling above. Ben, Aola, and the prisoner squinted and hid their faces as a massive skylight door shifted open and let in a flood of freezing mountain air and blessed, inestimable Force. Force.

It was like water in the desert. It seized the breath in Aola's chest and held her fast where she stood, ice and bliss shocking every nerve in her body. She ached, and she ached, and she ached, and there would never be enough to quench that thirst. She looked up to the clouds beyond the cage of thanatosine, feeling the Force, the light, as the scent of a long-awaited meal still kept just out of her grasp.

"You found it," the prisoner was also looking up. Aola wrenched her eyes down, and saw him in the light for the first time: filthy, with long black hair streaked white in patches, wearing tattered black robes, hands and now wrists painted with blood. He was crying.

"It's too far," said Ben; Aola was surprised to hear the crack in the master's voice. She looked over to him, and found that he was watching not the sky, but the door as it opened slowly, too slowly.

"It opens further," the prisoner assured them, pointing down across the dojo, where Aola could sense, as if through a veil, that the mountain air stood waiting for her to join it, breathe it, escape. The prisoner looked back to where his fellows were stirring, squinting, some moaning, some beginning to scream. "To the mountainside. It's how they get us to fight. Whoever wins gets to go outside."

The prisoners were beginning to stir, light and the promise of Force-soaked air galvanizing them into action. The fitter among them ventured further into the dojo toward the fallen cabinets. They picked through the broken sabers, searching for a full weapon left among them.

"And the loser?" asked Aola. Ben's saber hummed as he turned to face the crazed prisoners, some of whom were now taking up long saber shards and hefting them experimentally, jagged edges appearing like daggers.

Their dark-haired friend had his eyes fixated on the door, darting anxiously between the window of sky and the place where the door curved down to meet the ground. A prisoner behind them yelled and ran full tilt toward Ben, who took up stance to meet him.

"By the time there's a winner," the prisoner told Aola, "the loser's the one who's dead."

Aola glanced back at the remaining prisoners, who all seemed to be preparing to defend themselves whether with saber parts or their own hands. Their eyes were terrified and their hands shaking. What meager Force she could feel wafting in from above brought her scents of their fear, of fury, of determination that mirrored hers: to get out. She adjusted her hand around her saber, stepping forward to interpose herself between them and her companions.

"Why's it so slow?" Her eyes alternated between the restless prisoners and the door, which was creaking open at a glacial pace, shedding icicles and snow on its trek toward the floor. She could hear Ben grappling with his enemy out of view, saber deactivated in favor of fists and feet. A punch landed on something, though she couldn't have said if it was Ben's body or his opponent's.

"Believe me," said the prisoner, coal brown eyes fixated on the door as it opened their window into the Force one painful millimeter at a time, "you're not the first to wonder." She turned to look with him up at their window into freedom, and found she could not look away if she'd tried. So close. They were so close.

"Watch your back!"

Aola turned just in time to see a new assailant coming at her from behind, the jagged edge of a lightsaber held backhand in a fist. She ducked low under his neck-high slash and kicked at his legs. Emboldened by the feel of the Force from above, Aola reached out her hand and attempted to snatch his makeshift weapon from her hands; the saber did not budge. Her opponent's arcing slice downward didn't waver for a moment.

A foot came out of nowhere and kicked her opponent's weapon hand hard enough to send the whole man sprawling to the ground.

"You can't count on the Force to help you," snapped the prisoner at her side, his hair fallen across orange eyes; or perhaps the color was a trick of the dusk light. "Not here, not even if you can taste it."

Aola glanced over at Ben just in time to see the master decked across the face by a blow that would undoubtedly leave a back eye. He rebounded with an answering strike, but came away looking winded.

"We have to get out of here," she said, looking up at the sky, too far away. No sooner did she finish speaking than did the door shutter and groan to a halt, thunderous engines falling silent.

"No," the prisoner's eyes snapped to where the latch stood open above the ground of the dojo. "No, no, no!" He lunged for it and pulled, to no effect. "No!"

'What's happened?" Aola asked.

"Why's it stopped?" Ben asked loudly, still struggling with his assailant.

The prisoner screamed, wordless anger and grief mingled together as he pulled furtively at the lever that separated him from his freedom. Far above, drowned out by the light of Alderaan's setting sun, the halo lamps fell dark. The hum of pipes and wires unseen in the walls all around them all fell silent. The Jedi, their ally, and the prisoners stood together in their shared panic and the silence of unforgiving mountain winds, all just too far away to reach.

"No, come on," breathed the prisoner in a panicked tempo. "Force damn it all, not now!"

"It must be the power," Aola said.

"Do they know we're here?" asked Ben. The other prisoners continued their advance toward the Jedi and their ally, prepared to kill for their chance at freedom.

"We have to go back the way we came," Ben insisted, and paused to elbow his opponent in the face. The prisoner fell to the ground and did not move. The Jedi looked at his companions. "If they know we're here, we have to face them where we're stronger."

"We can't," the prisoner insisted, "If they know you're here, they'll come in force. We'll all be killed."

"Do you have a better plan?" Aola demanded, drawing her remaining saber.

The man looked up at the sky, and then looked to Aola as if he were preparing himself for his own slaughter. He tossed her her second saber, the one she'd dropped in the cells.

"Defend yourselves, cover my back," he said, fixing his eyes on the door with stony determination. "I'll do what I can."

Aola caught it, and was about to protest his plan, when he cut her off:

"On your six!"

She barely caught the punch in time to save her own jaw, and was then too preoccupied with her duo of opponents to worry about the door. The last remaining prisoner, a hulking Devaronian, charged at Ben, who turned just in time to meet a massive punch to his gut.

As the Jedi struggled, their prisoner friend stared up at the sky, breath hitching in terrified whimpers as he steeled himself for what he had to do. He lifted his hands up to the sky, sunlight showing him for the first time that he was injured and bleeding.

He curled his bloodied fingers like he'd been taught to do eons ago, and drew on the Force—not from above, like the Jedi had tried to, not from around him, like the Sith had wanted him to, but from within his own body, the only reservoir he'd had for eight years. Arms shaking like leaves, he clenched a fist, and the corner of the door above crumpled. Seizing it, he pulled, and screamed. Sound and smell disappeared, his senses overtaken by pure pain as he channeled the power of his own life force into this one, herculean task. Just as the metal wall peeled open for the sky, so it felt as though he were peeling his own muscles from their bones, ripping, tearing, breaking.

He let go only when the daylight blinded him completely. His arms fell. Senses returned; he smelled blood, saw spots, and heard someone screaming at him. He collapsed.

Obi-Wan could not have guessed at the purpose of the hall, be it a gathering place or a hall of rites, but it felt entrenched in the Force in a way that unsettled him to his bones. It was difficult to spy any details between fighting for his life and trying to find an opening—any opening—in Iris' defenses. Still, in the snapshot views he caught amidst the fighting, he was reminded vividly of the Jedi Temple and the ancient, buried hall where Ben had appeared so many years ago. This place was like that. However, where the hall in the temple was old and steeped in calm, this place was new and harsh. Where the temple was dimly lit and still, this place was well-lit and thrumming with energy and anger. The temple was like wine; this place was like fresh, too-strong vinegar.

He tripped backwards over a rut in the floor, and looked down long enough to see that they were fighting on a vast open space upon which were carved symbols and circles, and ancient language that sent shivers up Obi-Wan's spine. He looked up just in time to catch the Sith's saber on his own. They grappled; he mustered his energy, and threw her across the room. He twirled his saber and looked around for high ground while she found her breath. There was an elevated dais at the head of the hall. Obi-Wan hoped its platform would afford him a small but vital advantage.

Suddenly, the room went dark, and Obi-Wan stumbled his way up the stairs to the dais. The halo lamps far above hung in rings of afterglow for seconds before disappearing entirely, leaving the duelists alone with the light of their sabers. The air was silent but for that threatening thrum and heavy breathing. He'd not been fully conscious of the electric sounds emitted by the mountain fort until it was gone; if he concentrated, he could hear the Alderaanian winds howling outside. The power is out, he realized. He looked at the sealed door, and wondered if it still worked. He wondered if anyone knew where he was.

He watched as Iris—or whatever her real name truly was—pushed herself off the ground, lightsaber hissing and sparking against the rock beneath her until it began to glow. She rose and wiped blood from a new wound on her temple. She could see the trapped look on his face illuminated by the light of his saber.

"If you plan on cutting your way out of here, you're going to have to get through me first." She squinted at him, spoiling for a fight Obi-Wan wasn't sure he had in him. "I'd like to see you try."

Before Geonosis, Cody had been in the habit of bouncing his right leg rapidly whenever he found himself seated and anxious. He'd never been able to perfectly replicate the motion with his prosthetic or his left leg, and trying always left him more restless than before. Some time ago, he'd begun fiddling with his metal knee instead. He dug his fingers through the synthetic skin the doctors had given him and traced the hard edges of the joint, focusing on the strange half-sensations it gave him. He was pretty sure that the wires were supposed to map to his organic nerves better than they did, but the tingling instances of mis-matched machine kept his mind occupied and away from his troubles.

In the darkened surveillance room, Bail Organa watched the clone strangle his knee for a moment more, before asking:

"How long has it been?"

"Coming up on an hour." Cody said, not looking away from the comms receiver, which continued to scan the Alderaanian atmosphere for signals from their dispatched team. "No one seems to know where Ben or Aola are; all our contact with the rest has been eaten up by static, but we know they're still in the mountain."

Bail shifted his feet and scrubbed at his trim goatee. Cody didn't have to be familiar with the man to know that he was just as anxious as Cody himself was.

"Is there anything else we can do?"

Cody stared at the display of Aola's frequency number, and the red signal alert that hovered beside it.

"No," he said.

Suddenly, the entire room flickered. As if by wind or a surge of rain, all the screens, computers, and displays in the room went dark with a hiss, before flickering back to life. Some showed error reports.

"What was that?" Bail asked. Cody let go of his knee and leaned forward.

"I don't know," he toggled the controls, jiggering the machines back to life. The comms panel awoke where he'd left it. "We've lost Obi-Wan," he said. "And Anakin, too."

"Stars," Bail breathed.

"Wait," Cody leaned over to look at the map, where just two blips remained. "Rex and Padme, their comms are back up—they're heading away from the mountain."

"What?" Bail strode over to see for himself.

"Cody, come in," Padme's voice crackled to life over the speakers, and Cody's heart raced in relief and sharpening anxiety. "We're going to need an extraction crew yesterday."

Cody's throat went dry. While he took time to swallow, Bail leaned over the clone and pressed the comm line open himself.

"Where?" the prince asked.

When Anakin opened his eyes, he didn't know where he was. He knew he was in pain, and that he could barely move, and that his face felt stiff and chapped. He was on the floor. The room was dark save for a few thin rows of lights, and for several blinks of his eyes he could not have said which way was up or down. Eventually, he realized the lights he was seeing were security lights lining the floorboards. Had the power gone out? Were they on a ship? He wrangled his arms beneath himself and was surprised by how much his body shook as he propped himself up. He groaned when the effort sent a wave of blood—and pain—rushing to his head. Wincing, he sat up and rubbed his face, baffled to bring his hands away stained by stale, sticky blood. He wiped his face again, realizing the blood had come from his nose and, much more alarmingly, his eyes. But he could see just fine, right? He rubbed his eyes and looked around.

His heart leapt into his throat when he saw the bodies. There were four of them in total: three armoured men with blasters, and one man in dark robes with a lightsaber still in hand. All four of them were sprawled out in uncomfortable poses on the floor, quiet and still. Whether they were dead and if so, how, Anakin could not tell.

Memory dawned, and Anakin suddenly remembered the entire thing; the mission, the mountain, Obi-Wan, the sith, screaming, this.

Adrenaline made him forget his pain entirely. Anakin crawled over to the nearest one—the Sith—and pressed his fingers to the man's throat. When he felt a pulse, he knew it meant he was in danger, but a massive breath of relief escaped him before he could stop it. He checked the others; all alive. He sat back on his heels with a shudder, unable to look away from the scene.

As he leaned back, his bootheel crunched against something. He turned, and his heart fell back down to the floor when he spotted the scorched remains of a metal sphere.

"Arbee," he said aloud, voice cracking over the word. "Oh, Force." He turned and picked through the shards. There would be no salvaging the droid; it was sliced clean through not once, but twice. Tears welled up in Anakin's eyes, and he cradled the remnants.

A noise made him look up; howling wind and creaking doors. The power had indeed gone out, and without the electric hum of a fortress at work, their altitude became evident. The wind outside must've been gale-force for him to hear it in here. He glanced nervously at the Sith and his guards, wondering how long he had before they started to wake up.

You could just kill them, his inner monologue pointed out. His brain stepped in with the vivid memories of before he'd passed out, of holding the entire mountain in his fist and how much it'd scared him. How much more terrifying would it be, then, to kill someone while they slept?

He's a Sith, his logic countered, he'll follow you and come to kill you.

Maybe. If he does, I'll take him down fairly, he told himself. Not like a coward, not while he's unconscious.

You fight fair, you'll lose, his logic continued. You can't possibly face a Sith alone. The fact that it was true made Anakin's mouth go dry.

He busied himself by picking through the mess of Arbee's hull to find the droid's tiny memory banks. He secreted them away into a pocket and respectfully set the droid's hull to the side of the hall. He rose, surveying the room before going to the closest door. It would not open.

"Oh, come on," he said to the air. The power was out, but it was a bad military base indeed that didn't have backup generators made specifically for this reason: to keep things like doors working in a crisis.

Well, you're the one who had the entire system in the palm of your hand, his memory reminded. Should've thought about backup generators before you crushed it to smithereens.

His memory of what he'd done was hazy at best. Had he really destroyed the mountain's infrastructure so completely? Anakin placed a hand to the wall, searching for the overwhelming network of kyber he knew lay hidden within.

Where hours ago had been a maelstrom of energy, now there was only a trickle. Guilt blindsided the apprentice and made him put his free hand to his mouth in shock. He had done this? The kyber wasn't just disabled—no one could truly disable something as powerful as kyber—he'd destroyed it. There was simply not enough kyber left intact to keep the mountain running. The power was not out, the power was gone entirely. And he, Anakin Skywalker, was the reason for it.

Anakin looked to the door he could not open, and then to the only other door in the room, where the Sith had cut his way in. He stepped over the bodies to get to it, careful of the melted, jagged edges as he ducked through the hole. He was halfway out of the room when he paused and looked back at his fallen opponents. He stepped back over to the Sith and plucked the lightsaber from the man's hand.

"I'd feel better if you didn't have this when you wake up, if it's all the same to you," Anakin said quietly, clipping the saber to his belt and not liking the way it weighed against his hip. "Besides, I might need the extra cutting power. Looks like I've got a lot of dead doors to get through."

A/N: This was a short chapter, but I had to split it somewhere. The next one is already complete, I'll post it in a day or two.