Chapter 35: Preparation

Siri goes through, indepth, her mind, her body, and her soul as she meditates. She finished what the Jedi Healer had started, anchoring her presence fully back to herself. Though, not without first studying the sensation. It was strange, to feel parts of her soul, her Force Presence, outside of her body. A sensation of cold, a chill deep into her soul without it's shell around it. She wondered if this was anything like taking one's soul out of their body to Essence Transfer. It was one thing that Zannah hadn't taught her, even alluded to outside of their original meeting. Not that Siri was interested in ditching her body, at least not for another sixty years or so preferably.

When she was done tying herself back firmly and completely to her body, she turned her focus towards her stint in the Force Suppression Cell. Of her constant struggle with weakness while denied from the Force. On one hand, there's the time spent with her Obi-Wan, denied one another for nearly a decade. On the other hand, most of that was spent arguing, or having information pried from her. Thinking back on it though, the back and forth was good. She wouldn't have liked a meek and pathetic Obi-Wan, he wouldn't be worthy of her if he was. He was overwhelmed at times, he was only a Jedi after all, but he was by no means weak. He gave nearly as good as he got, sometimes more, sometimes less. Arguing about ancient Sith Lords and Jedi failures in regards to them with him was a treasure she'd enjoy.

Other parts of their arguing though... or when she was alone...

The crushing guilt was something she had thought she was passed a long time ago. Those she had killed were necessary sacrifices, or to look at it another way, kill them or be killed (or severely punished) by Sidious. Yet... if she still felt like that without the Dark Side pulsing through her, some part of her disagreed. She mentally scowled at herself. What else was she to have done? Let herself die? Gone to the feeble Jedi? In the off-chance one of those light-happy-psychopaths didn't smite the dark heathen showing up at their doorstep? The only reason she was alive right now was probably because Obi-Wan had argued to all nine Corellian hells and back for it. Not that she would have been in this position to begin with if she hadn't just killed him or been against another Jedi. The Jedi wouldn't have stood a chance. Would they even have believed her, if she came to them years ago? Or just dismissed it of the ramblings of a mad darksider?

Its the past.

Whats done is done, it cant be taken back even if she wanted to.

It doesn't matter.

Yet... in the depths of her meditation, pulling her emotions to her, there is a twang that says it does. She glowers at it, pulling those feelings closer to examine them. The interwoven and connected threads. All of it having a link to what she feels for Obi-Wan. Feels for that Jedi. Feels for that last chain holding her back. That last light pulling her away from her true power. Her memory shifts to that fight at Naboo, of those moments she was becoming a true Sith. The dark with her now howls for that power, however, it growls possessively about Obi-Wan, anger and self-loathing that he could have died by her hand. There is an air of power about that memory now that she can feel the Force. It is a memory intricately linked to her emotions about Kenobi. The Dark Side swirls and snaps like a hound around a caged prey that it can't get at but yearns to.

It's a chain she wants to break to achieve her full potential.

It's a chain she can't bear to break in spite of that.

Though the hound keeps prowling around the cage, prodding and poking and gnawing on the bars, hungering to break through...

Then her focus is pulled to another part of her time in the cell. The 'interrogation', telling Obi-Wan of her training. Well, some of the early parts anyway, there were still plenty of years to go. Not that she had any interest in telling him anything more than she had. But... there is an ugly dark thing lurking in her now, when she recalls how Obi-Wan reacted to much of what she said. Even the Jedi's reactions to it. She hates pity, there's no question to that. More than anything though, she takes note of how Obi-Wan reacted to any mention of Sidious, or his training of her. He doesn't hate, Jedi don't hate, but in that suppressant cell, where he doesn't have the Force to help control his own emotions, his anger at Sidious for what he did or had her do...

It is pleasing that he shares that with her, that someone else resents that life.

It is distressing to have that sadness and grief directed towards her, she doesn't want it.

She hates Sidious with everything that she is and everything that she ever will be. His apprentice killed her former Master, led her into her fall. Sidious ruined her life. Tortured her, slowly turned her into what she is now. Had her kill one of her old friends, would have had her kill them all eventually. He's had her stain her hands red, would have continued to far more as time passed. She isn't blind, she told Obi-Wan that she's a monster, she knows that. Even with the dark a part of her again, she still hates a part of her life as much as she loves and craves the power she wields.

She holds the Dark Side again...

But she has absolutely no desire to go back to Sidious. She was never loyal to him. First it was to her own survival and to getting strong enough to kill him, then the Sith as a whole. She certainly doesn't owe him anything; she learned FAR more about the Dark Side from Zannah than she did him. He practically made her beg for scraps, only teaching her enough to function. Most of what she learned from Sidious was cruelty, icy hate and anger, some cold calculation. Which aren't insignificant things if she is honest. But they are things that make her like Sidious, and she on principle doesn't want to be his legacy. His replacement yes, but becoming a female Sidious isn't her long-term goal.

She wants to be better.

Some of the things he plans for are absolutely idiotic. That kriffing Superweapon of his is madness. If Sidious rules his empire in any way comparable to how he trained her, he'll have rebellions cropping up left and right. People always planning and plotting to stab him in the back. In the short term perhaps his empire could work for a few decades, but it'll destroy itself if something else doesn't first with how Sidious would run it into the ground. Or maybe he'd be intelligent enough to dial it back a bit and not go blowing up every planet that shows a touch of defiance, who knows. All she is certain of is that an emperor of a galaxy of corpses is no emperor at all. The Sith's final victory was still years away, but she didn't have confidence in anything related to Sidious aside from his raw power.

She'd be a better Empress...

Well...

Once she eventually got around to trying to figure politics out. Honestly, the entire process looked boring, inadequate, time consuming, and would likely make her want to smash her head through a wall daily. Or smash someone else through one anyway... on one hand she wanted the power such a position would bring, on the other hand, it made her cringe if politics was always like that. Well, it wasn't like the galaxy could be trusted to rule itself without a firm hand guiding it. Some self-sacrifice would have to be made she supposed.

Though the likelihood of that outcome, of her becoming a Sith Empress, if she's being brutally honest, dwindles with every passing moment. And the upcoming trial is certainly going to do her no favors even if-when she comes out on top. The entire point of the Rule of Two was to influence from the shadows, and she was going to be brought out and put into the spotlight. The Galaxy would know she's a Sith, know about her slight involvement with the Occupation of Naboo, and potentially much more. There is little chance of her assuming any kind of throne or ruling position now without brute force if she still wishes to try after the trial, and that would be such a kriffing chore to do and then maintain control...

There is a ripple of potential there, a thought of: Why bother then?

Because honestly, if the galaxy doesn't want the deliverance she could offer them, then they can go kriff themselves. Why chain herself down ruling an ungrateful galaxy? Hells, she might enjoy life a lot better on her own without responsibilities now that she thinks on it. Her time with the Black Sun was in general more pleasing than her time as a Sith (time spent with Zannah could be a swing or a miss). Though, she has to get through the trial, the Jedi, then Sidious and who knows what else first...

There is a pull on her attention through the Force, a warning growl of the Dark Side, that the upcoming trial demands her attention. Siri frankly doesn't want to deal with it at the moment, she's nice an comfortable with her emotions wrapped around her in a deep meditation. The senate is a bunch of piss-ants anyway, what threat do they pose to her?

Sidious.

Again, the Dark Side whispers a warning, a baring of it's teeth and a slap upside her head for her arrogance and shortsightedness. The trial wasn't a threat, it was Sidious. He was enabling the trial, he had some goal there. Something with her. Whether to get her executed, or out of the hands of the Jedi, or something else. He had some desire for this, some plan important enough for him to reveal her and the Sith as a whole. She mentally licks her lips at the unease in her gut as she realizes she really, truly has to come to a decision.

She's already felt that Sidious doesn't want her dead, that then means he wants her reclaimed. So she has to decide if she wants to allow that to happen or not. She doesn't want to go back to him, but since when has what she wanted VS what he wants ever really mattered? If she lets this go off unchallenged, she'd probably end up back at his side again...

But if she refused to go along with the trial, messed with his plans...

There is so much desire there, to be free of him. However, she's not even close to ready to actually challenge him. Not without years more of experience. If she fought him on this, if she became his enemy rather than his apprentice...

There's a high chance he'd simply find a way to kill her, and if he came for her, she wouldn't stand a chance...

She pauses her thoughts when she faintly detects Obi-Wan's presence enter her room. Then her awareness turns to other Jedi, in the hallway, in the temple. Some whose attention is towards her, some trying to ignore her, most in-between. Oh, right. She's not particularly masking herself, so they can feel her darker meditation. All the little Jedi afraid of the scary dark...

All the Jedi.

She toys with the thought. Sidious is immensely powerful, but if she had a buffer of the entire Jedi Order between him and her...

She could feed them information to set him back a bit...

She could use the Jedi to buy herself time...

How much time would be the question? And how much could she realistically improve herself here? In the Temple? Under the Jedi's watch and restrictions? The chances of success are smaller than if she just bide her time after returning to Sidious...

But she would be FREE OF HIM in the meantime.

There aren't words to describe how much she wants that; she's tired of being at his beck and call, she really is, she doesn't want to wait as long as Sidious did to kill Plaguies, she can't imagine being his apprentice for that long. But is that desire worth risking her life? Though, if she went back to him, she for one knew her punishment without failure would be her harshest yet, and two, that eventually Obi-Wan's death would be demanded, and that makes the dark in her roar in defiance and possessiveness. He belonged to her, and she'd not throw him away for Sidious, not a second time now that she knew he actually felt something for her. Not to mention the matter of pride, like hell was she going to let him or the senate make a show out of her.

So, she steeled herself and made the mental commitment.

She was going to make Sidious an active enemy.

The weight of that realization is heavy, and it's all she can do to pull the Force tightly around her, masking her presence and hopefully the impact of that decision. Regardless, he'd realize it soon enough. Life was certainly going to take an interesting turn from here on in...

She slowly began to pull out of her meditation. She needed to focus on the trial and preparing for it. Of course, the first thing that greets her sight is Obi-Wan sitting a bit across the room cross legged on the floor. She can't decide if she's pleased that he's here, or irritated that he entered without permission. Then again, she is the 'captive' here. She mentally scoffs at that, now that she's out of that cell, she could escape if she wanted to, Temple Guards or not. She assumes there's a camera in here somewhere, she'll find it later.

Obi-Wan begins as he always does. "Good morning, Siri."

She decides to go with irritated; the same greeting combined with the same act of just sitting opposite of her as he did in the cell is a reminder she doesn't like. "Would be better without a Jedi in my face first thing."

He makes a face. "Are you always such a graceful morning person, or is it the dark?"

She rolls her eyes. "Obi-Wan, if you start patronizing me on everything now that I can touch the Force once more, I'm going to break your nose again."

"Noted," he answers, eyeing her suspiciously, "Is breaking my nose going to be your default threat from now on?"

"I can escalate it if you want," she says, humming a bit as she entertains a few ideas, a dark smile slowly spreading across her face, "I can make a more permanent mark if that's your preference."

"No thanks," he says flatly.

She gets up and briefly stretches, cracking her neck to one side then another. "So then Obi-Wan, where's my breakfast?"

"It's almost lunchtime actually," he comments, "You meditated for a good twelve hours."

She hums, non-committal. She's a little surprised it was only half a day's worth after all of that, probably because of the Jedi Healer if she had to guess. "Regardless, feed me."

He sighs at the antic and points to a chair. "Cold food on the tray since you were meditating for awhile after I got here."

She glances and walks over, grabbing it and then moving to the apartment's couch, plopping down, crossing a leg over the other, resting her tray on it, then proceeds to stuff her face. She's faintly aware than eating like this after being on an IV and/or fed through a tube for a few weeks might be a tad rough on her stomach, she doesn't care to much. She can Force that away. Force, she's missed the Force and all the little things that are so satisfying to do with it.

Speaking of which... she's feeling petty and a little vindictive, and she has the Force to do all kinds of things to Obi-Wan. Hmmm... she won't inflict pain, so she needs to be creative about it...

Obi-Wan clears his throat. "Siri... I'm... sorry about the cell. None of us realized what being in it long term could do to someone."

...aaaaand now she's a little guilty. Only a little though, she's still pissed at him and the Jedi even if keeping her not heavily restrained in some form would have been stupid. She changes her revenge to merely letting him sweat and feel guilty. The reason she succumbed to the cell at the end was, after all, because she forced herself to. No reason to let him or the Jedi know that though. She decides not to respond to his apology, merely polishing off her tray and then levitating it towards him.

He takes and mutters something she faintly hears as 'frivolous use of the Force'. That just makes her grin, because he has no idea how 'frivolous' she could be with it. "So, where's my datapad?"

Obi-Wan sighed and pulled one out of his robes. "One datapad, as requested. Read only, will short-circuit if any attempt is made to circumvent that."

Siri rolled her eyes and yanked it from him with the Force, pulling it across the room and into her hands. Alright then, time to get started. She briefly watched Obi-Wan start meditating out of the corner of her eyes, and then dug in. It only took her a quick search to bring up dozens, reaching hundreds of articles related to the Occupation of Naboo and the Trade Federation. Which in term led to articles about the pre-Banite Sith in relation to her, other articles about Jedi, fallen or otherwise, who had been put on trial rather than being handled by the Order... and one or two articles about herself and Master Gallia, from some of their more public missions when she was a padawan...

Her eyes glazed over the circus, scowling a bit. None of this was useful to her. She needed to find out exactly what she was being charged with in order to plan how to deal with it. Perhaps one of the initial senate sessions would give her an answer. She brings up the first one, and starts watching silently, switching to different viewpoints as it went to focus on who was speaking. She mentally gives Chancellor Palpatine props for using Obi-Wan's presence against the Jedi as an example in favor of bringing a Jedi to trial. She then pays very close attention to the reactions of the senate as Palpatine reveals that Gunray outed her as a Sith.

She scoffs at the lack of any recognition. The Senate has no idea what a Sith is, all they have to go by is boogeyman stories from a thousand years ago and further back.

The fact that the Jedi tried to refute her being a Sith makes a growl start in the back of her throat. How dare they demean what she is. If she's been outed as a Sith, then she will bear that tittle fully, not some wishwashy pathetic fallen Jedi; and oh doesn't it please her when the Chancellor calls Yoda out on that lie, playing a short clip of her battle on Naboo. Of course, he is still a little naive for wanting her inside the Senate.

"Master Jedi, the Senate is not asking for her to stand before unbound our unaccompanied," came the recording of the Chancellor said, incredulous creeping into his voice, "Are you saying that in Force Binders, surrounded by Jedi Counselors, she would still pose a threat?"

"As a matter of fact," she murmured under her breath, "Given the chance to chant some sorcery, Chancellor, and you'd be surprised."

The session goes into a vote, and Siri fasts forwards to the end, nothing else important happening. There are a few minor sessions where historians are brought to the Senate to answer questions about the Sith of old, but none of this particularly interest her. The next video, which made her raise her eyebrow, was the 'Initial Questioning of Siri Tachi', which, if the view count was to be believed, was well over half the Galaxy. Part of her preens at being the center of so much attention, another part for some reason starts to have a bad feeling. She doesn't remember ever being questioned, unless that was...

Wait...

They didn't...

She starts the video and narrows her eyes at it, predatory waiting, and then she sees herself brought out on a hover chair, drooped over, eyes vacant, mouth open a bit, and is that a little bit of drool? She pauses the video and sits still for a long moment, looking at her first public display to the galaxy at large.

Her vision turns red.

"YOU KRIFFING JEDI!" she snarls, rising to her feet and glaring at Obi-Wan, objects around the room rattling at the tremble of the Force pulsing out at her.

Obi-Wan barely has time to get out of his meditation and start to his feet. "Siri?"

She picks him up with the Force and throws him across the room, slamming and pinning him to the wall. "How DARE you put me on display like that!"

There is the swoosh of the door, and then the sound of lightsabers activating, "Put him down, Sith!"

Her eyes flicker to the stream of Temple Guards starting to enter her room. She glares at them for a moment before releasing Obi-Wan, letting him crash to the ground. He winces, but that's not nearly enough to cool her fury. "My first truly public appearance, and I look like a infirm, helpless, brain damaged weakling!"

Obi-Wan rises to his feet, hands held palms up in placation. "Siri, calm down."

"Get out," she snarls as temperature of the room turns to ice, "Get out or so help me even if I die in the process I will go on a killing spree through the Temple."

Obi-Wan swallows as the Temple Guard's tense, assuming ready stances, not that it would save any of them. "Alright Siri, we're leaving."

She doesn't hold back the growl rumbling from the back of her throat as the Jedi file out one by one, Obi-Wan giving her one last hesitant look, before the door is closed. She lets loose a furious scream and releases a storm of rage in the Force around her. Throwing the couch across the room, ripping apart other furniture, destroying the table, the lighting bursts, and ripping bits and pieces out of the floor wall and ceiling...

Sidious's focus shifts from the daily debriefing he is given as a Chancellor, at the feeling of pure unadulterated rage ripping through the Force from the Jedi Temple. His lips slowly curl into a pleased smile. If he had to guess, judging by the nature of the rage he feels, his apprentice just discovered her little trip to the Senate. If that is any indication, his Apprentice is still dark. Oh yes, Kenobi didn't appear to have as much influence as Sidious would have anticipated. Less than Ur Manka had years ago.

Well, not considering what happened on Naboo.

Still, this was good. This was a confirmation: His Apprentice still well and truly existed. All that was left to do was reclaim her...

By the time Siri's fury has abated, the room doesn't look anything like the living room of a Temple living quarters anymore. She, thankfully, hadn't damaged the datapad to badly. She flips the couch rightside up and flops down on it with a heavy, frustrated sigh. She was still pissed, but oh, hadn't it felt good to just release all that emotion for the first time since before her captivity. She takes a moment to brace herself for further rage before she turns video of the session back on and continues watching.

She frowns at the Aldaraan senator's question for her records as a Jedi Padawan. She's not certain she should care or not if they pry into her time as a Jedi. She doesn't know if anyone will make anything of it, but she'd rather not have anymore reminders of her past come-up than she's sure she'll have in the temple. She... might have to look at those records herself at some point if she doesn't want to get around to decompartmentalization the damage Plaguies did to her early memories.

Mmm...

Nah.

She watches as Palpatine expertly backs Mace Windu into a corner, disapproval on his face and voice, "Then it would be accurate to say that depriving a Force Sensitive of the Force would be considered a form of Sensory Deprivation. You are aware, Master Jedi, that Sensory Deprivation is considered by this Republic, when exposed to it for extended periods of time, to be a form of torture, are you not? That it can have sever psychological consequences for individuals depending on the duration and extremeness of the deprivation? That perhaps this deprivation may be the cause of her condition?"

The Force swirls around his words, a sharp bark of 'Pay attention!' in her ears from the Dark Side. There is something important in that speech. Something that can and will have a large impact on what is to come. The question is, what exactly? She marks this spot in the video for future review, and continues watching. She is a bit perplexed why Palpatine is so insistent on having her out of the Force Binders. It's not some random senator or pawn she would have thought Sidious to use to check her status, unless her Master owns Palpatine that is. He is, was, a senator she, much to her chagrin, has nothing on. To be fair, there are a stupid amount of politicians in the galaxy, she can't be expected to have a complete scope on all of them. This one though... she recalls being particularly vexed to find squeaky clean.

Which either mean he actually was, which she doubted.

Or he hid it remarkably well.

When she watches herself as the Force binders are taken off, how weak and pathetic she looks, she feels like the world just ended. If Kenobi was in the room, or any other Jedi, she's not sure she'd be able to stop herself from crushing their throats with the Force. She has never felt more humiliated, even her time in that cell when Sidious was converting her doesn't compare. The chill in the Force leftover from her earlier rage takes a new dive into arctic temperatures. Not so focused on an outlet this time, she detects the reaction of the Jedi, the rise in apprehension, agitation, fear, and more. She drinks it in, like a fine wine, to try and take the edge of her boiling rage.

She also still hasn't found what the exact charges against her are by the end of the video. Does the Courts have their own page on the holonet? They should, perhaps that's a better route...

She finds what she's looking for about ten minutes later.

Attempted Murder: Obvious, though, they have far more people than just Qui-Gon and Obi-Wan listed. She dismissed it as unimportant for the moment.

Sedition/Conspiracy to commit Sedition: Against the Naboo. She really didn't have any involvement other than trying to track down the queen, and trying to kill the Jedi. She'd argue that point at the trial. If it mattered. She probably couldn't shake the second charge, but the actual Sedition she had almost no involvement in. Except... there are follow up charges as well. For other planets and systems. Siri frowns as she reads them, and then hisses quietly under her breath.

"While operating under the alias 'Iris'," she mutters under her breath.

Damn Ur Manka, and damn Dooku. And Sidious while she's at it, damn him for having her lead Dooku on that merry goose-chase across the galaxy.

She grinds her teeth as one charge after the other appears in relation to the name 'Iris'. Murder. Extortion. Armed Robbery. The list goes on and on. Some of these she knew she'd be able to beat, because she was damn sure she left little to no evidence. But if even a quarter of these charges stuck... she might as well plead guilty from the get go and get it over with.

The Dark Side growls at her again, demanding she pay attention. It's sharp grasp like someone grabbing her head and forcing her to look at something. She squashes any uncertainty and potential fear of her fate, goes back to the senate video, and plays Palpatine's speech again. And again. And again. And a fourth time. She knows shes missing it. So she goes slower, pausing the video at the end of every sentence, going over the words in her head...

"You are aware, Master Jedi, that Sensory Deprivation is considered by this Republic, when exposed to it for extended periods of time, to be a form of torture, are you not?"

She hums thoughtfully as the dark ripples. She punches in 'Psychological Torture' into a search and considers what she finds. Some of this is stuff she's already well versed on. Zannah taught her much on ways to manipulate a mind through assault, domination, dependency, or illusions, what she reads (aside from some of the extreme examples) is childsplay compared to what she can do. Its not so much as what was done to her, its close to a stretch to consider the Jedi's holding her any kind of torture. She's not so ignorant to think that was their intent. More of a byproduct of their ignorance.

No, if the thought that's starting to worm its way into her head is right, its more the fact of what was done, rather than the effects of it. Palpatine said Sensory Deprivation when use in extended circumstances is considered torture. However, a keyword search through the holosite finds that the Force is absent of any definition or reference to that. This is literally the first time 'Force Deprivation', if she has to coin the term, has come up in the Republic. There is no legal background or examples for or against it. Just Palpatine's comparison.

She gnaws on her lower lip a bit. This is important because frankly, if she can't ditch all the charges associated with 'Iris', she doesn't stand an actual chance in court. It'll be the death penalty for sure, and she will have to bail and disappear off Coruscant, out of the Republic, and either into the Outer Rim or Wild Space to have a chance at survival. She need 'Force Deprivation' to be actually considered a form of torture for one simple reason.

She is fairly certain that any confessions or evidence obtained from 'torture' is inadmissible in court. And in that cell, to Dooku, is the only time she's ever given any kind of confirmation of herself being Iris. If they can't use that, then she can argue and pick apart every single charge levied against her. Well, except for the attempted murder and sedition charges in relation to Naboo. That will be a little tricky, but, she has something she knows the Jedi want: Information on Sidious, on the Sith.

It weighs on her suddenly that her only chance to escape death, Sidious, or running for the rest of her life relies entirely on the possibility of the Chancellor's words being taken at face value in the Courts...

You mean escaping justice.

Siri's eyes twitch a bit. Oh great, that's back now. Sometimes, she does wish she had killed Obi-Wan, if only to permanently shut up that voice. She shakes her head and turns the datapad off, moving to the center of the destroyed room to meditate. On the trial, the future, and to dwell on some of the incantations Zannah taught her. If she has to escape from the middle of the Jedi Temple, from Sidious noticing her slipping out of said temple, and off Corsucant, it'll require Sith Sorcery of a level she hasn't been forced to use yet...

Review Responses:

Nerdman3000: Delayed happy birthday! Yoda does have hope, but, there will be many ups and downs to come. Zannah's Holocron is currently on the Scimitar, hidden somewhere on Naboo by Siri. It'll be discovered eventually, and that'll be oodles of fun when it comes up.

1saaa: Actually, yes. Siri doesn't know that Sidious = Palpatine, and she's doing to have oodles of fun poking at the Senate and Sidious on galactic stage. :D. Not to mention she's trying to use Palpatine's words against him.

EclipseTobias: Anakin's going to be a little bit before we get into him, in relation to Siri at least. Anakin isn't the center of this story, there will be changes to him, and to the galaxy as a whole (especially after Siri's questioning session in the Senate, she's going to kick the hornet's nest), but Siri is the main focus. We've had some sections told from Sidious or Obi-Wan's PoV (and Ur Manka's that one time), but the majority is going to be Siri.

The possible time-travel is reserved for the very end of the book, as a one-of special circumstance, if I choose to do a sequel for it. How I plan it is, funny enough, related to how I did TT in my other Star Wars story. BTW, out of curiosity, are we sure the One's can't time travel? Is that confirmed or assumed?