"So now that we've blasted off, you mind telling us what's so important?" Exar asked.
"Don't keep us in such suspense." Jo said monotonously.
"I had a vision." Aang said plainly.
"Yeah we know. Hate to break it to you, but we Jedi get visions all the time." Jo replied.
Aang swiveled in his chair. "Not me. I haven't had a vision in a long, time."
"How long?" Jo asked.
Aang sighed; he never reminisced upon those times. "Not since the time of the Empire." He answered, swiveling back around.
They exited hyperspace above Mustafar. Exar and Jo never saw Mustafar, but had heard stories. Exar was informed; he'd heard about the planet, and suspected where they were headed; and now that he beheld with his own eyes, he connected the dots.
"Mustafar!" Exar exclaimed. "Where the fate of Darth Vader was sealed."
"Ever since the prophesy of the Chosen One was fulfilled, Mustafar has had time to heal itself of its dark side curse. But something's happened here. Something, wrong- it's hard to say, it's, unusual."
That pressed Jo to interrogate. "Unusual, like, out of the ordinary, or like dark sense of humor? . . . or like, alternate, parallel universe thing that shouldn't be here kind of unusual?"
"I think it's p- now how would I know that?!"
They landed on Mustafar, near an abandoned construction outpost. The power had been stripped from the area, but all the lights were switching on and off.
"What happened here?" Aang asked.
Exar closed his eyes and tuned his senses. "The dark side." He answered darkly, "Be at your ready."
Exar and Aang took ahold of their hilts, and Jo grabbed his wrists, and the three entered the hallway built into the deactivated volcano wall.
They entered -what looked like- a base, or a planning room. There were deactivated holotables and monitors inside, flickering on and off smoothly. It looked like there were maps of empty plains on the tables.
"This must've been a war room. A secret base." Exar said.
"The Separatists." Aang specified.
"Separatists." They heard a weak, limp voice cry.
At the same time, all three of them activated their lightsabers. Exar held a blue blade, Aang held one green and one blue, and Jo contained orange lightwhips in his wrists. The buzz of their blades echoed throughout the halls.
"Jedi." The voice said upon hearing the blade's humming.
"Where are you?" Exar asked.
From behind the closest table, a body dragged itself out; it was a Neimoidian, and he started crawling towards them.
The trio was alarmed, confused, and almost horrified. Because when they looked down upon the corpse, there was a clean slice going halfway through his chest; the injury originated through his heart. They were perplexed at how he was moving and speaking.
"The war, was a hoax! The Sith, they were behind all of it, and they betrayed us." The zombie grabbed Aang's boots and tried pulling himself up. "They're, they're still out there." Aang stared into the Neimoidian's strangely yellow eyes as he was spoken to. "They're how I'm alive. I see the truth now." He began struggling to maintain himself. He fell, and his back hit the ground; when he did, lightning protruded from his fingers and hit one of the screens on the wall. He coughed up blood and said, "Please! Kill me!"
This was all troubling to them. Even Aang hadn't seen anything as this. "Jo." Aang said quietly, holding his hand out. Jo looked down at the body, then up at Aang. Jo unignited his lightwhips and pulled his blaster from his cloak, and handed it to Aang.
Aang kneeled down to fulfill the Neimoidian's request. When he got close enough, he found himself yanked forward slightly.
"Beware the Zabrak. The end draws near." The Neimoidian whispered into Aang's ear. Then he let himself fall back. He looked over to one of the holographic tables and saw a peaceful image, indicating the end of the war, which he never saw. "Peace." He whispered.
Aang slowly put the gun to his head, waited a few seconds, then reluctantly pulled the trigger. The body relaxed itself as it was once again put to rest.
"Aang." Exar said. "What did he say to you?"
'Beware the Zabrak?' Aang thought. 'Is Exar hiding something?' He stood up and turned around. "He said 'the end draws near.' "
"The sleepwalking dead here sounds like any other kook if you ask me. Could you flesh out the details?"
"He seems too serious to be just another paranoid person." Aang said, taking a sample of the blood before it was too late. He tossed the blood vial to Jo.
"It's a shame though," Jo said, putting the vial in a slot in one of his custom robot arms. "He wasn't a husk of his old self." When Jo heard nothing, he added, "A feeling in my gut tells me I need to shut up."
"Jo, you don't even have a gut." Exar said strangely nonchalantly.
"Oh yeah." He murmured.
"Aang, you okay?" Exar asked. He was suddenly unnerved as no one seemed to be moving.
"Oh, yeah, I am." Aang said, snapping out of his trance and standing back up. "Well now we have something new to report."
"He's right. Get the masters on the line." Exar agreed, heading back to the ship.
"In my experience, this would also be the moment to get help from, further up." Aang suggested.
Exar stopped, thought for a response for a moment, then said, "We don't need to; we've handled stranger."
"I think not. This is beyond even me."
Exar sighed. "Fine. As long as we're not here when they work." Then he retreated back to the ship.
"Something on your mind?" Jo asked Aang.
"I haven't seen a Sith since the Imperial days."
"Mmm." Jo hummed. "You know, I've always been meaning to ask: how are you. . . you?" Jo asked. Aang just gave him an odd look. "I mean, how do you look so young?"
Aang answered, "I can show you, but it has to remain within the team. It'd also give Exar a valid reason not to hang around when the officials arrive."
"You serious? Let's go!"
"Hey, Exar!" Aang shouted. "We're heading to Kamino! Be ready!"
"Kamino!?" Jo exclaimed.
"Fine!"
Aang and Jo caught up to Exar on the ship to make their report, and request an investigation of the site. "This is stranger than even what I saw on Naboo. I have doubts that the paranormal investigations crew will be able to solve this. At least, not soon and not alone." Aang said.
"How do you mean?" Rye asked in crystal clear holographic imagery.
"Whoever is responsible for these supernatural dealings is in tune with the dark side. We need someone on our side who deals with it."
"What happened?" Rye asked, growing more curious and anxious.
"It's. . ." Aang looked off to the side and squeezed his eyes shut. Just thinking about what he witnessed turned his bowels inside out. Never in his years had he seen anything like it; he didn't even know how to properly word out the experience. ". . . Not easy to explain. It'll, be in my personal report."
"And what does Exar think of all this?"
"I couldn't tell ya. You know it's hard to read a guy with one emotion."
Rye simply nodded. He was unsettled to the core; the possibility of a rising surge of dark-siders could mean the worst for the galaxy.
"Do you think we'll be at war again?" Aang asked.
"No one wants war; but in this day and age, some people strive for nothing less."
"I've lived through two of them already; and if there's anything I know about the enemy, it's that they've always had a long time to plan this stuff out. Each threat is bigger than the last. Darth Sidious-"
"Only came through again because it wasn't seen through that he was finished."
"Do you know anyone who might still be alive?" Aang asked.
Rye averted his eyes downward, sighed in regret, then answered, "No. No one."
"I saw that look. What happened?"
Rye looked back at Aang and replied, "Possibly the most important lesson a Jedi could know is that you can't save everybody."
"You're talking to a war veteran; you think I don't know that?" Aang quipped.
Rye snickered. "Should I expect to have you back soon?"
"Later, rather than sooner. We're heading to Kamino."
"Have Exar keep me posted." Rye requested.
"Yes, sir." Aang concluded. Then a potential candidate entered his mind. "Hey, what about-"
"He won't get involved again. Let's just, leave it at that." Rye said, then turned off the hologram.
No shortly after the team left did the paranormal investigators arrive, led by New Republic Lieutenant-governor Calista Calfan.
Calista was a short, beautiful woman. Her round face accented her short, slightly chubby figure. She wasn't Force-sensitive; but she proved that you don't need to be force-sensitive to take a big role in the galaxy, so she took to paranormal investigations, along with her role as Lieutenant Governor of the New Republic.
"Ma'am!" An officer exclaimed to Calista. "supernatural readings are off the charts."
"Explain." Calista commanded.
"It's like nothing we've ever seen before."
"Have we determined the source?" She asked.
"Not yet, ma'am."
"Show me the scene."
The officer led her inside the room. The corpse had been hauled off to be sent to a morgue, but everything else seemed to be intact.
"The corpse held the power which was detected?" Calista asked, kneeling down to inspect the area.
"That's correct, ma'am!"
"But wasn't the source of the power?"
"Eh, no. That's where it confuses us. What we detected, came from. . . up." He said as he pointed a finger to the ceiling.
Calista hummed. She got up and walked outside, then looked into the sky. The officer followed her and said, "We followed it about twenty meters off the ground; there, our devices were rendered useless."
"That's where it was strongest." Calista discerned. "Can you get some kind of readout from here?"
"Perhaps, but results will take a long time. We've never seen anything like this in our paranormal investigations."
"Never?" She asked sarcastically, not believing such a statement.
"No, ma'am. We primarily specialized in ghosts and portals, not random explosions of Force energy."
"All we know so far is that is is a spontaneous trail of dark force that landed in the corpse."
"Pretty much-" The officer was interrupted when everyone felt a rumble.
"Take cover!" Calista shouted.
Everyone ducked to the ground. Suddenly, a red energy explosion erupted from inside the room, pushing everyone and every ship back, nearly pushing them off the edge of the platform.
Once Calista recovered, she asked, "Is everyone alright?"
"We're fine, ma'am!" "Yes." "We're okay!"
"Do we have everything we need to research?" Calista asked.
"I think so!"
"Alright, then let's pack it up. Hopefully we can get some insight into this matter."
Every radio on the site buzzed on. "Come in, ground team! Come in ground team!"
Calista picked up her comlink and answered, "This is the Lieutenant Governor. I read you."
"The body. It's gone."
"Gone? Pirates?"
"No, not stolen, sir. It just, disappeared."
"Disappeared?"
"Yes, sir."
Calista lowered her hand and looked into the hallway that led to the room. She walked in to observe the room again; but suddenly, everything looked much more ancient, like no one had been there for decades.
"Commander!" Calista shouted. The commander quickly ran to her side. "You caught an image of the room before, right?"
"I did, ma'am. Whyyyyyy-woah!" The commander also took note of the room's condition.
Calista took out an imager orb and took a three-hundred sixty degree image of the room. "A before and after collage will be something interesting to present to my husband." She heard the commander shiver. "Don't worry, you don't have to be there." She assured him. Governor Bolen Calfan didn't have the friendliest reputation among officials. He was a hard man, unbiased, which allowed him to properly serve justice; and it made him a powerful Jedi, and the head of the new Jedi Council.
"Let's finish packing it up." Calista suggested.
"We're just about finished, ma'am."
They finished packing everything up; but before everyone manned their vehicle, they heard some crumbling rock. Calista looked at the mountain around the hallway, and saw that it was beginning to crumble. "Everyone go! The mountain's falling!" The mountain began more quickly falling apart; the team was scurrying as quick as they could to get the ships up and running and escape the mountain; they had recently installed emergency startups for such situations.
They were quick enough to avoid the massive landslide that came a second later. Calista witnessed the whole thing from a window. "The explosion annihilated the integrity of the mountain. There's something out there, and it has this power. We have to get to the bottom of this soon."
"Do you think the Sith are actually alive?" Jo asked.
"Only they could have the power to do such a thing." Exar replied.
"Why haven't we been able to sense it?"
Exar sighed. "Back in the day of the Old Republic; not the old Old Republic, but the last Old Republic; there were ten thousand Jedi serving the galaxy. The widespread use of the Force clouded their ability to sense the dark side clearly."
"But there's only a handful of Jedi now. Why didn't we sense it?"
"They were always on guard, but we weren't. Palpatine died, the First Order was destroyed, and we thought we took care of everything." Jo could sense Exar growing frustrated. "But we were blind." Exar said quietly, but aggressively.
"We took our victory for granted."
They sat in silence for a few moments, then Aang burst inside the room. "You guys need to hear this!"
"What happened?" Exar asked.
"I analyzed the blood from the Neimoidian, and found it reeking with dark Force."
"Okay?" Exar said, wondering where Aang's apparent rant was heading.
"In the middle of my analyzation, everything I sensed going on in that place suddenly disappeared. I checked back on the sample, and it was gone!"
Exar furrowed his brow. "What do you mean gone?"
"The blood, the DNA, the dark force, everything is gone! Like it was just taken from existence!"
"That makes absolutely no sense." Jo said.
"Yeah. There's something funny going on here, and I have a feeling we're a long way from finding out what." Exar said.
Aang sighed. "I have a bad feeling about this."