AN: (moans) Time to update... I think my beta reader died after she read the first piece of this chapter in detail. (moans again) I went over what remained myself and got mom to read it too, so I hope it's okay. I mean, I'm catching up to myself on and that's becoming an issue, so I had to post another chapter. Heh. Reviews, now...

Master Darth Warious: Heh. Here's another update, and arsenic candies just for you.

Jedi-Keliam-Kenobi: Probably not soon enough for you, but here's an update.

Insert Nicky-Nackity Nickname: Yay! I'm glad you loved it. Yes, I know the beginning moved too fast. I'm working on rewriting it. You see, I wrote the beginning a long while ago, and unbetaed. I've improved muchly in my writing skills with the aid of two lovely beta readers and time, of course. I'll try my best to explain the NJO situation (which I have made slightly AU anyway) for those who haven't read the books, though.

Blackheart Syaoran: I love your name... (coughs) Sorry. As for what you said about Luke fighting DM... (grins sheepishly) I hope you read this and the next chapters... you know, a lot of people like this for the TPM characters being stuck in the cooler time period. (shrugs) Oh, the fun of Auness...

Jandalf: Heh. I love you too, Master. (rolls eyes) You know I couldn't resist that quip. And now that about 2 months have passed, I will take you seriously that I do all right on Lukie. I mean, to the point where I'll write him in real time RPG... that's faith in his character. Thanks for hiking my opinion of my character-portrayal of him. By the way, I was using two dashes. I've started trying to use just one, and spaced out now...

LuvinLivnReadn: Warious is a she... just... so you know. And I will not claim myself to even be one of the good SW fanfic writers. You, girl, need to expand your horizons a bit if you think most of them suck. I command you to go and read Tatooine Engagement (Audreidi) and The Water's Edge (obana). And perhaps some of Smenzer's stuff too. (shameless) Glad you enjoyed it and I hope to pull you into the SW fandom.

Padmé Evenstar: Hi, Padawan. (grins) And yes, I posted before you could beta. I may very well need you back at the rate I'm going... GAH! NO REVENGE!

Molly: I need you back! Oh well, I hope you like this update when you get to reading it... no, you're not biased. (rolls eyes) What was that about the phantom baddy? Mom says she thinks he reminds her of Smith... uh... never mind, that's a spoiler now...

Adrienne Gollumeyes: Moo. Now you can stop poking me every Sunday to update! (sticks tongue out) And yes, they killed Coruscant, and yes, Obi will meet little Ani, and... I TOLD mom you'd bug me about "seen". (sighs) Glad you liked it... (:P)

WhiteWizard101: Well, here's your update. (grins) Glad you like it.

AN 2: Wow, that's a lot of reviews...

--Chapter 6--

It wasn't all right. It couldn't be all right.

Silence.

It was too quiet. As if all the birds and beasts and creatures so venerable and time tried that even the Force itself made way for them had vanished. None of the sounds of the jungle were there anymore, nothing more than a rustle of wind that brushed the thick canopy of branches and vines. It caused some of the thinner vines to sway in the breeze - and then, even that too vanished.

As if the elements themselves were afraid.

Luke stopped.

He felt Mara stiffen in his arms (for he had been loath to release her from his embrace and she had seemed to linger) and then she reached down with one silent and swift motion to grasp her lightsaber. He slowly released her then and dropped his arms to his side with clenched fists. The Jedi Master drew in a breath, released it quietly, then echoed the movement to raise his lightsaber handle to his right hand. He felt her tension ripple through the air like the brief breeze that had seemed to die out, but unlike the wind, it remained.

She switched to predator.

Anger. But it didn't feed from Mara, Luke knew. The expanding circle of darkside emotions that spread out weren't the sort of flame he knew from his wife. Her eyes were flared with a desire to fight, a strength of will so few people had, but it was not anger that trailed about her aura. It lay far deeper...

He closed his eyes. Search for the center...

Then traced the rippling energy inwards, diving through the turmoil of darkness and trying not to be swallowed within. Luke snapped his eyes back open and let the blue flame contrast with the hate.

He knew the sense he received from tracing the expanding circle of awareness. It was twin to what he had felt in the presence the Emperor: a desire to eradicate all Jedi from the galaxy, and to carry on, to decimate all who stood in their way. He knew the hunger for power, the lust, the hate, the pure passion for control over everything...

"No," he said simply.

"No?"

Luke smiled suddenly, the calm of a Jedi spreading over his features, and ice blue eyes changing just slightly into an overly peaceful mask. "I've already won," he whispered, smiling. And he thumbed his finger over the igniter on his lightsaber for a second...

Then Mara ignited her lightsaber with a sudden snap-hiss, a sound that had grown all too familiar over the last few years, and whirled it over Luke's head to connect with a blood-red beam. Ozone filled the air, and a brilliant flare of light that almost blinded the two Jedi.

Luke dropped in less than a second, flipped back up, and in a blink of an eye had his lightsaber activated. A green flame was now held in guard position in his right hand, left flung out behind him to keep the sudden balance change from throwing him off.

This is not good...

The dark robed figure that was the sentient being wielding the lightsaber smiled. His teeth glowed in an unnatural brightness, and his eyes were yellow. Amber like the Emperor's, and like Luke had envisioned his father's to look like before he was hidden behind the mask. Amber that traced a transparent lens over whatever color had once glowed in the depths of a skull.

Thick and heavy robes, red stripes over a horned face... their attacker seemed the very embodiment of the devil himself, some creature from the depths of a child's nightmare.

This is really, really bad.

All the creepy glory that was possessed by one of the darkside, revealed in moments that passed within a blink of an eye - yea, were merely a blink of an eye to take it in, to take in the obvious and brutal reality of that moment.

A choice.

Run, and be struck down from behind, or fight to the death.

They would fight. And fight with honor. And die with honor, if the need were there.

The three blades gleamed in the grove, casting unnatural blue and red light across the shadows of the jungle, and allowing the taint smell of ozone to pollute the fresh air. The moment passed too quickly, yet slowed by the Force so that all the sensations of the darkside could slam into their awareness. The hatred for all living things, for all that would dare stand in the way of conquest...

The tucked away fear and memory of things too far back for him to remember, of being taken to a better life, and tricked away into who he had become...

But for the growing hum that changed in frequency when Mara shifted her lightsaber slightly, the grove was silent, their breaths and heartbeats tight in their chest.

Yet that silence, the startled feel of being responded to in like attack, the knowledge of evil... it lasted but a second, or, as someone more precise would've noted, 2.5504 seconds. Luke hardly had the time to get a decent look at their attacker before he was forced to defend himself.

And defend himself he did.

The whirling slash-hiss-slam of colors, sensations, and the Force had grown all too familiar to Luke Skywalker as he had lived. As well, it had grown to be quite a second nature for Mara Jade-Skywalker. Their opponent was well trained in the Jedi arts, and in the Force - he put up a fight that was worth remembering... if either of them were to live to remember it.

Recoil. He knew the red blade would go for his shoulder, he dove sideways. The flicker in the Force was almost too late. Luke only had an instant to reverse his motion as the darksider feinted, and caught the darksider's lightsaber on the inner ring of his defense.

Who am I fighting?

Curiosity for a second. I never trained him. Have the Sith made a rebound? Are we going to be faced with another galactic calamity in moments if I don't die?

Or...

A slamming attack from the robed attacker would've led to a lock had Luke not forced himself forward, and the Sith recoiled for a second.

...Is he just another Dark Jedi? Luke finished his thought.

The lightsaber passed just a hair beside his shoulder. It singed his robe through, but Mara's blade caught it a second before Luke found himself lacking in a rather important appendage for lightsaber dueling.

Too close for comfort.

For one man - though an alien, a Zabrak, Luke noted - this one was doing far too well.

Mara changed her style in seconds to toss the alien off guard. Suddenly her eyes were flaming with an anger Luke didn't like to see in her inner self. Rather than a past resolve, she was suddenly maddened. She dove in for an attack, momentarily catching him - it? - off step, and driving him back a couple standard inches.

Luke took the second to recover, and joined her in attempting to drive the alien back.

It still wasn't enough.

It was nothing like a spar. Lightsabers whirling in nearly twin motions, the two Jedi allowed themselves to meld, working together with motions nearly as one person. Working to batter the Sith back and exhaust him.

Luke didn't want to kill him. His curiosity was more of a threat to him than the red lightsaber blade, at times.

Maul carried on his steady attack - for that was who it was, of course, even if the Jedi didn't know this at the time - dodging their blades as if they were mere toys. Mara scored a gash along the Sith's arm, but his face didn't even flicker, so set on finishing his Jedi opponents.

Nevertheless, the tear in the black fabric had cut deeper than just the thick dark robes. Mara knew it hurt.

She swore to hurt him more.

Yet she felt Luke's warning - even if it were only her mind, pressed to the blindness of battle that filled it in. Beware of the darkside. She filed it away, allowing herself to heed it if only unconsciously.

Battle rage consumed her nevertheless, and she found herself seeing the world through a misted glare of the Force and passion to win. It seemed to slow - time, that was. Carrying her through the wings of energy blades and pain, rather than letting her sink - slowed down enough to let her see what would happen a second before it did.

Luke already could see that slower, second viewpoint. He had embraced it from the start.

Yet it was still going too fast to predict...

TIME!

The sudden flash of complete wrongness hit her like a bowling ball in the stomach through the Force. It physically knocked her back, she fought for her balance as her knees threatened to meet her shoulders.

Luke flickered, half of his mind wanting to scream what's wrong! at her. To stop and pull her back to her feet.

He didn't. He twisted back into form, blocking with a rage he hadn't had a moment ago. To the Jedi Master, it had been their attacker that had knocked Mara back, not a sudden flash that he had missed.

Yet he had missed it. Mara jumped back up, lightsaber back in hand before her boots struck the ground simultaneously. She didn't have time to question what it was that she had sensed from the time stream and the Force before she was back in attack.

And Maul threw Luke back, using physical strength that the human did not equal to toss him to the ground. Luke's head lashed back, and his hair flew into his eyes for a moment, and lightsaber flew into the hands of Darth Maul. Maul kicked him in the temple sharply and the Sith saw Luke wince. He grinned slightly, wickedly.

"No!" Mara yelled, hurling herself at him.

By now, the black tattooed Zabrak had grown tired of this game. He hurled her back with the Force, and reached through her mind, funneling deep into the heart through her mental blocks, as if they were hardly there. In truth, he was fighting as hard as she was, holding her back...

Mara fought. Made sure she hurt him as much as he hurt her...

Darkness...

She swore before the red and black closed over her vision and other senses that the wind had picked up and the birds sang once more. The jungle returned to peace.

Mara's senses did not.


He had knocked her off guard.

I'm dead, he thought ruefully. It was really quite a shame being dead, after all. The lack of a physical form that really meant anything, the fact that you couldn't really manipulate the physical realm with any surety... well, it made for a pain. Plus the glowing garments of white and silver didn't really add to the all-evil image.

He didn't know how he had shaped the words that made up the thoughts. He didn't remember how he knew the language. Or what the language was called, for any matter. Common, or Basic, or English - oh, what did the name matter?

Yet she had sensed him. Or, more, sensed what he had done.

He smiled, and tucked his white garments down. It didn't really make for much of a difference, as there was no one there to note the shadowed figure and his disheveled appearance. Being dead, after all, tended to mean alone.

All these years of no time, no space, no light, no dark... nothing... and he had finally found a way to effect them! Finally! It gave a break to the absolute nothingness of deadness - which of course meant it wasn't nothing. It was boring. Boring was something, even if it wasn't a relished something.

Hate was slightly more preferred, but he couldn't even hate at all times.

Ah, well, Time is something, if nothing. Manipulating Time made for quite an amusing toy, shifting the parallels so that they crashed and wove together. He could bind threads that never should've connected. Quite a masterpiece indeed, indeed...

He tucked both hands in front of himself. It was really quite a shame that he couldn't remember his name. Goals were one thing, but to not have any name to apply to their pure mastermind functions, well! It was rather unbelievable. After all, in a few centuries after he ruled the chaos that he was pushing the puzzle pieces of continuum into, they would have to place a name to the mastermind behind it all!

Ah, well. He couldn't remember enough of the Basic speech to name himself as it were. Perhaps later, perhaps when he could recall who and what he was...

But there. It was Basic. He knew the language's name, and that was a start. Perhaps his wondrous name would come next to fill the emptiness. Surely someone as brilliant-minded as he had a just as incredible name.

For now, he would call himself the Master. Yes, that would do just fine, he thought. After all, they would hail him as such in due time...


Sit down.

Close your eyes.

She shivered. The air was warm around her, but it clung with a damp chill, blanketing her in her sorrows, and drowning her in her tears. It was nearly tangible with its thick reality and pain.

Stand up.

Her motions were robotic, teasing and taunting. They weren't her own, she felt like a puppet. A puppet to grief - that was what it was. It had taken her, taken her mind into its control, taken her to toss her into an unending sea of sorrows and fear. For a chance to dream away in nightmares...

That was it, it had to be it. It was only an illusion. Yes. None of this was real. I'll wake up and scream, and everyone'll ask me what's wrong, and I'll smile and say wearily that it was just a bad dream, just a nightmare, just the little shadows in the back of my mind taking me and laughing at me. It's only a dream.

I'll wake up, scream, and have my laugh. Watch the shadows creep up in the corners of the room as reality slowly sinks back to me. I'll sink back in the soft feathered feel of my bed, reach up to flick on a light. But when I move, the light will come on because I'm no longer just tossing in my sleep. It knows, even if it's merely a droid, a motion sensitive existence...

The light'll overcome. It'll spread outwards in less than a human can note, chase the shadows back to where they belong - vanquished. I'll reach up and rub the sleep from my eyes, noting the tight feel of my fists. I'll unclench them, sink back, and turn the light back off if no one heard my screams.

I'll laugh, and go back to sleep knowing I'm safe.

I'll... I'll...

Damn, this is real, isn't it?

The young queen slowly reached a hand up to her hair, brushed a piece long hair that had come undone back behind her ears. She paused for a second, and sighed. Sighed hard, then caught her balance, sitting back down. Padmé flinched. She was undecided, near to the point of pacing. Light wind rustled her hair, blowing it back across her face. She had to reach up and brush it back, pinning it behind her ears yet again.

It didn't stay. The light wind just caused a few stray hairs to slip over her brown eyes. Padmé finally gave up and just left it hanging in front of her eyes. Perhaps it would disguise the tears if nothing more. Why couldn't it rain?

She wanted to know. Wanted to know how! Why! When! Who! How! But, most of all, why. The unanswered rhetoric ringing in her ears, in her mind, in her face-- why why why why WHY! why'd this happen the trade federation wouldn't would they oh sithspawn i don't know...

Thoughts that ran away on a train all their own, chasing after the questions that refused to be answered, and refused to make any note of anything besides taunting her mind and making her wonder. Wonder why. Wonder everything that she couldn't answer.

Can't I just ask?

There wasn't really anyone to ask, now was there? There was the rescue crew, and she respected their actions - had Padmé not been so distraught she would've thought to aid them. The thought had passed through her mind.

No. She couldn't ask them for answers to questions everyone else probably knew. They would merely think her a pain and someone whose only goal was to stand in their way. A hindrance to an attempt to save others.

She didn't want that.

It was the confused tangle of thoughts that disguised the crunch of a footfall behind her, striking a piece of twisted and misshapen ferrocrete that protruded from the musky ground behind her. Though the approach had been masked by the soft and damp biological ground, she was so lost in thoughts that she didn't hear the clink and clatter of metal boots against some piece of a wall or floor of something. Perhaps it was the piece of a hotel where millions of sentients gathered to stay the night, or a spacer's cantina with all the scum of the galaxy and more besides. Or perhaps it was nothing, no more than a piece of a support to hold up another building.

But it was there, and that was what mattered. And so was the clang that came of armor just glancing off of the rubble.

And Padmé did not notice until Boba Fett spoke.

Then her train of thought derailed.


But they weren't out of hyperspace, and Anakin was suddenly confused. He knew he had heard the rattle of bolts and duct tape threatening to fall apart... he knew there was something...

Outside, the ship hurled through hyperspace with a lack of thought. Stars passed in seconds, unseen by anyone within the ship. Asteroids formed, a comet zinged past a sun that would in seconds grow up to incinerate a lifeless planet that circled it. The moon would fly away from its destroyed world, a satellite with nothing to follow but a path newly forged. A Mynock foolishly seen a red glow inside of a large engine and flew into it, becoming Mynock stew in a second.

The ten year old boy reached up, touching his head gingerly with one hand. He felt tired, drained, as if something had been taken from him. He had seen the future before, brief glimmers of things before they would happen, but never like this before. Never...

He carefully stood up, gingerly testing his weight upon his feet before swinging himself completely off of the bed and onto his feet. The floor held up, as did his knees, and he crossed the room silently with no intent in mind but moving.

Anakin could've sworn he had heard the ship come from hyperspace... Another glimpse of the future? Or not. Closing his eyes, he examined the insides of his eyelids in thought.

Upon one event an entire future could rest, and young Anakin Skywalker was completely unaware of the fact that his entire future rested in the balance soon enough. Take one different step, and a life could be remade. Take another choice and a destiny could be relived.