"Is she dead?" Mandalore asked bluntly as the team looked around them with a collective sense of apprehension.

"I don't know. As much as I hate to drag everyone through this, I have an idea of where she is, and I must at least try to rescue her. Whoever doesn't want to go, feel free to stay here. This may very well be a trip merely to find a corpse." Though her words were blunt, her tone was full of dread. She was hoping for even a chance to save Vash at this point.

Kreia spoke up at once. "If you walk this surface, you shall walk it without me. This place is strong with the Dark side. It is difficult to center myself here. Guard your feelings carefully."

Avery nodded at once and then looked at the rest of them. Visas' shoulders sagged. "I'm afraid I must agree. It seems quiet, but I can feel the pain of what took place here. I don't know if I'm strong enough…"

Mira picked up her trailing sentence. "If you're not, I'm not. Not to be a coward, but I'm pretty new at this, so if she's worried about going nuts or whatever, there's no way in hell I'm gonna be able to handle it. I'd like to stay sane and relatively nice."

The Exile turned to Mical worriedly. "I hope you will not take offense to this, Mical, but would you stay as well? I'm afraid-" Her mouth twisted for a moment. "I fear one of us could be injured, and I'd be relieved if you were here for emergency treatment the second someone needed it."

He looked let down, but he pushed his pale hair from his eyes and gave her a nod. "That makes a great deal of sense."

Avery was dissatisfied with this as well. Frankly, the Disciple was one of the more protected from the Dark side in her party, but if they were ambushed, a healer would be desperately needed on the Hawk in the case of a quick getaway. It was the best thing to do. Speaking of a quick getaway…now was a difficult part.

When she faced Atton, he immediately threw his hands up and took a step backward. "Uh uh. No way, Kess. I am not leaving you out here to sit around twiddling my thumbs on the ship. I'm going."

"Look, I need you to have the engines primed in case we need to run out. It's not like anybody else can fly it."

"I'll teach somebody," he shot back. "I'm going."

She was looking up at him with those damned big dark eyes, clearly saying she didn't like that he was staying, but he had to. He cursed under his breath. "What if something happens to you?"

"I think I'm capable of helping her," Mandalore said wryly, his great arms crossed. "If it comes down to it, I can carry her back."

The leader was not exactly great at reassurance, but before Atton could reply, Bao Dur stepped out into the dry heat, two lightsabers in his hands. He smiled down at the Exile as he handed them over. "All done. That special crystal you found is in the silver one, while the violet one has the speed enhancer just like we picked out. I think you'll be pleased."

"Bao Dur," she said tremulously, "I know it's a lot to ask, but…"

"Of course I'll go," the Zabrak replied easily.

"What? Why does he get to go?"

She was still looking up into Bao Dur's clear eyes, and spoke in a faraway voice. "Because we've done this before. In the War, he knew what I wanted or what to watch out for before I even said anything. He's very aware of me in the Force. If there's any danger of the Dark side where we're going, I know he'll trust my word regardless of what anyone- or anything- tries to tell him."

There was love so apparent in the Zabrak's expression as he looked at the Exile that it was a wonder no one had seen it before. Whether it was romantic or just hero worship, it reaffirmed everything Avery had just said. She was right: he wouldn't fall, not with the General with him.

"Declaration: I shall be more than happy to accompany you as well, Master. I should like to test out this new rifle, as well as observe the logical and rather impressive teachings of the Sith in the old Academy."

Avery whirled toward the droid and spoke sharply. "How did you know that's where we're going?"

"Apology: Forgive me, Master. I can vaguely recall associating with this place alongside a previous Master, but cannot recollect why or who it was. Supposition: It could be that, despite my memory wipe, past experiences are returning to my core banks, albeit slowly. Perhaps I shall be able to supply more information as we continue. Explanation: I hypothesized that you hold ties to my previous Master somehow, and due to the indistinct familiarity I hold with the Academy, I assumed that you would have some business in the same area my Master did."

"So he was here?" Avery mumbled to herself. Then, louder, "Very well. You shall accompany the three of us. If nothing else, separating you from T3 would be a good idea."

"Outraged Objection: I do beg your pardon, Master. I have nothing against that pathetic little excuse for a droid. Just because it does not possess my inspiring and remarkable attitudes and features does not mean I dislike it."

The four of them were walking away now, but Atton called to the Exile. "Wait a sec. Are you sure you have to go in there?"

She turned to see stark worry on both his and Mical's face, regret in the postures of Mira and Visas, Kreia tense while they all watched her go. "I have to," she told them remorsefully. "Regardless of what happens."

Atton and Mical didn't move or speak as the Exile left with the other three. Even after the rest of them had gone back inside, the two stood in the vicious sun watching her departing back, unconscious of each other's presence, until her figure disappeared against the vast stretch of sand.

The further they went down the Valley of the Dark Lords, the more frightened the Exile became. The anxious feelings Atton and Mical were broadcasting gradually faded away, and the absence of their reassuring presence made each step harder. She hated feeling like a coward, but this planet was beginning to twist into her, weaving tapestries of temptation in her mind. The great statues on either sides of the Valley seemed to glare down at her, whisper at her, watch her every step. She reached out, and already Bao Dur's thoughts stretched toward her, blending their energy without effort. Just with the bond established, she felt better.

He was chatting quietly with his droid as though nothing had happened, so Avery took her opportunity and inclined her head toward Mandalore as they walked. "I have a question for you," she started a bit awkwardly.

"Oh wonderful."

"Don't worry. If you don't want to answer it, you certainly don't have to. I won't force myself in like I suspect someone else did. You came with me in order to find your lost clans, right?"

"Yes." His answer was short.

"There's another reason you came along, isn't there? Kreia forced you to go with us. She made you stay. Otherwise, you would have left a long time ago."

"She has answers to questions I won't find any other way." He went silent for a moment, considering, and then on a hard exhale, let out a thought that sounded stupid to his own ears. "Even if she doesn't tell me, which I suspect she won't, I believe I'll find the answer traveling with all of you anyway. That's why I'm still here."

"Oh." The Exile looked down at her feet, creating footprints that were swept away almost seconds after she made them. "Then why are you helping me go to the Academy? Did she tell you to?"

"No." He glanced at her out of the corner of his eye, his voice more relaxed. "I figured you'd need me along. I'm not Force-minded, so getting mixed up in it isn't as much of a threat for me, and you knew that if you got killed or went insane or something I could lead the other two out of here. That's why."

"You're right. There's just one more thing and I swear I'm done."

He sighed noisily, but she spoke anyway. "All you do is have to say yes or no. Is the answer you're looking for…is it about an old Master that we both had at one point?"

It took a while, but eventually he answered quietly. "Yes."

"I see." She glanced up at him and then looked straight ahead. "Because I think it might be the same answer I'm looking for."

The ruined, half-buried Academy loomed before them, the presence of the Dark side almost a tangible thing in the air. The heavy doors creaked open to the sight of bodies littered down the long hallways.

Mandalore took point, observing the piles. "This wasn't one big fight. These bodies are all sorts- mercs, bandits, Sith and Jedi- and they all just sort of accumulated. All in various stages of decomposition."

"Inquiry: What or who killed them, then?"

"Don't know," Mandalore replied to the excited-sounding droid. "I guess we'll run into them. A couple of these look like fresh kills."

"There's a terminal at that first hall intersection," Avery pointed out. "I'd like to get down there and see if we can upload the area's map, or maybe find security feeds that will show us where Vash is."

"So she's in here?" Bao Dur asked.

"Definitely. Not sure if she's alive or dead, but we'll find out regardless. I can't sense which room she's in."

"Reassurance: I'm positive your meatbag friend is dead, Master. How could a Jedi survive in a location like this?"

The Exile ignored him and walked cautiously down the hall, hands at her lightsabers. As her team joined her, massive stone doors crashed shut behind them, blocking their way out.
"Extrapolation: It appears that by shutting these doors, someone is attempting to trap us."

"Thank you, HK," Avery snapped.

The Zabrak took out his lightsaber and continued down the corridor. "Let's just get to that terminal. There's probably one around here that can open those doors again. All we need to worry about is whoever shut the doors."

There was a faint shimmer in the air, then five Sith, vibroswords in hand, charged for Bao Dur.

With a burst of Force-powered speed, Avery was up next to him by the time the Sith had reached her teammate, and she flung both lightsabers out to drive into two torsos. Using Vrook's form, Bao Dur took out the third with a hard sweep to the stomach, and HK and Mandalore both made clean shots into the last two.

"Observation: It looks as though we've contributed a few more to the collection of scattered bodies. How charming."

There was a strong presence further down, sending echoes of something sinister that became more powerful the more they continued. Wisps of black smoke would occasionally float by, and by the time they'd reached the shabby terminal, Avery's heart was hammering against her ribs. "Bao Dur, see what you can find on there. You two guard him. I need to scout up ahead. Something's wrong."

None of them questioned her. She veered right, reassuring herself that they were indeed looking at the computer, and tried to sense what the presence was. She didn't want to risk her teammates being caught up in it. When she walked into the first classroom in the hall, all the lights in the area went out.

The darkness was absolute. Avery felt along the wall carefully, attempting to shout out for her companions, but all she managed was a weak croak. She was alone and had no idea when this blackness would let up. Were the others okay?

All of this mess just for Vash, who was probably already dead…why bother sacrificing her and her friends' safety for someone who wouldn't defend her when she'd been exiled? Avery was so blind she couldn't sense how she'd entered the room. If she died now, after coming so far, it really wouldn't be all that surprising.

Would her difficulties never end? Hadn't she suffered enough for the galaxy? She'd never even been a good Jedi, at least not the kind the shortsighted Council wanted. She wasn't enough for them, despite how hard she'd worked, how exceptional she'd been.

All the things she'd sacrificed for the Light side amounted to nothing in the grand scheme of things. She was sick of it, doing the right thing just for the sake of good. She'd given up family, close friends, resisted nights with Revan in camp, pushed away from a team member who tempted her. For what?

Intense, rich scenarios were running through her mind now: wealth, astonishing abilities from another side of the Force that could crush her enemies, satisfaction brought on by revenge against those who wronged her, long nights tumbling with Atton in a wild mingle of skin and tongues and teeth…if she'd just give in to it all… just think of it…love and loss, violence and hatred and the unimaginable power that she was throwing away, all for ideals…just stupid ideals…

General! Get out of there!

Avery could feel her body again, now crouched against the wall, rocking back and forth. She shook her head hard, attempting to clear away the murky fog in her brain.

You have to run, do you understand me? Run out as fast as you can! You have to get out!

I have to run…?

Yes, General. It doesn't matter which direction. Run. I'll guide you.

But why-

Remember? I was with you in the War. We trusted each other. You can always trust me. Run.

The Exile did remember, so she took off, eyes squeezed shut, as images flashed in her mind again. Screaming husks of flesh, knives digging into skin, fire in her veins, nightmares full of gore, such loathing, and the claws, the claws digging into her head…she had to run and get out…

Avery burst out of the room to the lit hallway, her three teammates standing at the entrance. Mandalore instantly caught her when her knees sagged.

"D-don't…" Her teeth were chattering so badly she could hardly speak. "D-don't go in t-there-"

"Believe me, we won't. What happened to you?"

This close to him, Avery could almost see the hue of his eyes past the helmet. She focused on them as hard as she could, trying to push away the black and the things she'd seen. "Someone s-set that up."

Bao Dur looked past her shoulder to the now-normal looking room. When they'd run to the door at her screams, there had been total darkness beyond the entrance. He could only be thankful that purely by instinct, none of them had dashed in after her. Who knows what could have happened.

Avery had calmed somewhat, standing on her own and shivering only a little. "Someone filled that room up with Dark side energy. I'm sorry. Let's find Vash and get out of here as fast as we can. I don't want to run into something like that again."

"The detention room down the left corridor is locked up. It seems like a safe bet." Bao Dur gestured ahead.

The four of them chased down the winding hallways, dispatching Sith as quickly as possible. Whoever had filled up that room was in the Academy, Avery knew, and he was waiting for her. She had to find Vash.

"Training room is up there," the Zabrak panted. "We should find a way to unlock the room next to it."

The light was too low, blood and flesh blended into the sand on the ground. Bone-thin Tuk'atas in cages growled viciously at them. Avery clicked around on the terminal until she threw a fist down onto the screen in frustration. "It looks like we have to go through an exercise before it'll open. Get ready for a fight."

The cages rose, and the starving black beasts bared their long teeth and attacked. HK promptly shot the fastest in the head, its quivering body landing in a heap on the sand floor, and Mandalore took out two from across the room: one bullet through both skulls. Having rescued her before, Bao Dur was now being guided motion by motion by Avery, the Exile practically moving for him through the Force, and the three lightsabers were rapid flashes against dark hides until all the beasts were eliminated.

"Excellent. It looks like the battle took too long. The door is open."

They walked inside the grim room, and at once Avery's head snapped away. Vash was dead.

Mandalore looked at the broken woman's body, her head lying in a pool of blood, and placed a firm hand on the Exile's shoulder. "We've found what we were looking for. Let's leave before we get into more trouble."

Her head never turned forward. "Right."

"And don't apologize," Bao Dur told her. "We understand that you had to make sure she wasn't alive. Now I need to see if this terminal will open the front door."

"HK," Avery asked, her eyes planted on the ground, "would you inspect the body, see if you can find anything…"

Thankfully, droids were immune to delicacies involving dead meatbags, so HK-47 rifled through the master's robes without hesitation. "Statement: I have found a datapad belonging to one Lonna Vash."

"Take it, please."

"The front doors are open," Bao Dur said as he walked up to the other three. "Let's go."

"HK, if you'd read that datapad while we exit I'd appreciate it."

"Condescending Reassurance: Of course, Master. I shall be happy to indulge you with information that your meatbag qualities render you too squeamish to do yourself." When she didn't acknowledge the sarcasm, the droid lifted the datapad to its eyes. "Recitation: 'I found the Sith that I came to Korriban looking for. I am no fool, but I fell neatly into their trap. Their leader, Darth Sion, is a perversion of the Dark side such as I have not seen before. Though he was cunning enough to capture me, he seems otherwise to be a volatile brute.' Analysis: It is indeed ironic that this Jedi meatbag assures the reader that she is no fool, and yet in the same sentence admits that she fell into a trap and died because of it."

"Thank you, HK." Avery rubbed her tired eyes while they walked. What a waste. And she'd come so close to being in real trouble in that room…

She felt Mandalore stiffen beside her before she even looked up. A figure stood in the front lobby, much in the same attitude as he had back on a ship in a certain mining colony. This time, however, there were four Sith apprentices standing next to him.

"It's him," the Exile said with dread. "He's been here waiting for us."

"A Sith, I take it?"

"A Lord of them, no less. Prepare yourselves. If I fall, leave me and get to the Hawk. I'm not very strong right now, so it's a distinct possibility."

Sion's one good eye was riveted to the Exile as the team walked into earshot. "Did you come here for answers? There are none. The call of Korriban is strong, but it is the call of the dead."

She only watched him silently as his pained voice was forced up out of a ragged throat. There were so many cracks and holes in the Lord's body that he looked more skeleton than man. The little skin he had was gray and peeling.

In contrast, the Lord of Pain looked down at the Jedi Exile, pale-skinned, vivacious and whole, shining with good health and the glow of the Light side. Her beauty, her fullness, was dreadful. "I have studied you, immersed myself in you. I know the paths you walked in exile. I know your teacher. I know the fires that raged upon the Dxun moon while the Republic died around you. You know war. You know battle. And I know of Malachor."

The Exile was gripping her lightsabers so hard her knuckles were white. This creature had been studying her. There was a desperate undertone to his strange speech, his expression twisted up into sadness. Why?

"You know what it means to be broken. The one who travels with you will destroy you, as she did me. I can…help you. I can end it before it begins."

"What do you know of Kreia?" Even as the words left her mouth, it was too late, because Sion's lightsaber was already out and flying down at Avery. HK and Mandalore opened fire at the Sith, and the Exile's weapons came out in an X to block the vertical swing. She pushed back with a flurry of blows that burned his flesh away, but even as the damage was created, the skin and tissue were pulling back together. His swing was a red blur that Avery only just managed to catch with her silver lightsaber before Sion drew back up and swung at her other side.

Avery drove into Sion's heart with her free saber, only to look down in shock when she realized her weapon drove through a hollow cavity. The Sith Lord had no heart, no blood, no breath. His pulse was the Dark side of the Force.

In the time she took to process this, Sion swung up and across to her throat. She ducked down and went on the defensive, parrying his flurry of blows as best she could. He was feeding off the energy of the Academy, while Avery had virtually nothing to pull from. Her run-in with Sion's trap left her unable to channel the Dark side- simply put, she was too weak after siphoning that much terrible energy into her. Sion's Force was the most twisted and pained she'd ever run into. She couldn't handle it again.

Offense is practically pointless. I can't injure him without him Healing it immediately. I can't stay this defensive for long, though. I'll burn out too quickly. What do I do?

In the seconds that followed, no one had time to process what occurred. The Lord of Pain saw that his followers were dead, and now a Zabrak was charging him head-on to help the Exile, while her other followers, armed with rifles, took aim. Sion pulled in the pain that was so easily available in him, and as his hand reached out, everyone but Avery halted.

The Exile looked around to her frozen teammates, then back at Sion. I'm not going to win this fight, am I? There's no way- not with Korriban fueling him and me too weak to use any of his energy against him. I can only hope to distract him enough that he'll let the others go before I die.

Sion's eye was fully red now, his lightsaber pulsing with his Force, repairing all the damage Avery had done. She knew she was probably going to die, and she had to accept that. I'm not going to win this fight.

But I have to try anyway.

"Atton," Mira yelled even as she rushed into the bridge. "Fly out now! You'd better have those engines primed or I'll-"

"I've got it," the pilot snapped back at her. In the fastest take-off he'd ever accomplished, the Hawk was up and he was flying them out before he turned to Mira for an explanation. Without another word, the bounty hunter sprinted away.

From a few rooms down, Atton could hear raised voices and banging around. That old feeling came back, the one that told him something bad was happening, so he took a quick second to breathe deeply a few times before he stood. Despite the sickening plummet in his gut, he couldn't jump to conclusions that were inconceivable. He couldn't panic now.