Featured song:
1. Excerpt from "Under Our Spell" by the Dazzlings
Anakin rushed out of the scare floor with his twin and bride-to-be to look for the kids, when Anakin suddenly bumped into a familiar Trandoshan, who turned black from coming into direct contact with Anakin's clothes.
"Ugh! What are you three doing?" Dar hissed, changing back to his normal colors.
"Uh, nothing." Carmine lied.
"Can it, Four Eyes! So, what do you think of that kid getting out, Skywalker?" Dar asked Anakin. "Pretty crazy, huh?"
"Oh yeah, crazy."
"Word is the kid's been traced to this factory. You haven't seen anything?"
Anakin tried to be subtle, but he saw Gabby sneaking into a hallway.
"Well…"
"No…" said Carmine. "But, if it was hypothetically an inside job, I'd put my money on O'Mer."
"The assistant at station six?"
"Yeah, he's got those shifty eyes."
So, while Dar went after O'Mer, Anakin and Padme rushed to look for the kids.
"Hey, wait for me!" Carmine exclaimed, but before he could run…
"Carmine Skywalker-Jinn!" shouted a familiar voice.
Carmine looked down the hall to see Caroline, and she did not look happy. She had bandages placed practically all over her body from the process of decontamination, and a few feathers fell from her due to how she'd kept transforming from a human to a swan in the process.
"Last night was one of the worst nights of my entire life, bar none!" Caroline said angrily.
Carmine winced at how terrible his girlfriend's condition was.
"I thought you cared about me."
"Princess, please. I do care about you. I love you." Carmine said. "I never meant for last night to happen. I mean the disaster part. That wasn't supposed to happen. I was trying to prop… properly show you a great birthday."
Carmine scolded himself for almost spoiling the surprise that he was trying to propose the night before. This was definitely not the time or place to do it now, not while Caroline was in a bad mood.
"And where were you when I was being poked and prodded, hooked to machines? Huh?!" Caroline shouted, getting Dar and O'Mer's attention.
Quickly, without thinking, Carmine held Caroline in a dip and kissed her, but she responded by slapping him.
Dar, however, took another look at the newspaper, and in the picture, he spotted a picture of the twins in the background.
"The Jinn twins!" Dar growled.
"Carmine!" Caroline shouted as Carmine ran off after ending the kiss. "Men."
Carmine ran through the halls, trying to find his brother and future sister-in-law, but only succeeding in getting more lost.
Carmine stopped to catch his breath next to a portrait of Palpatine, on which the eyes blinked. But then Dar appeared. And when Carmine looked behind him, he yelped.
Dar threw Carmine against the wall and looked him in the eyes, fogging up his glasses with his breath.
"Where are the kids?!" Dar demanded.
"Kids? What kids?" Carmine said.
"They're here in the factory, aren't they?
"You're not pinning this on me. It never would've gotten out if you hadn't been cheating last night."
"Cheating? Cheating. Right." Dar said. "Okay, I think I know how to make this all go away. What happens when the whistle blows in five minutes?"
Carmine looked at the clock and said, "Lunch time?"
"Exactly. Which means the scare floor will be…?"
"Closed for lunch?"
"Empty! It'll be empty you idiot." Dar pointed to the clock. "You see that clock?"
Dar grabbed Carmine's arms tightly, scaring the younger twin.
"When the big hand is pointing up and the little hand is pointing up, the door will be in my station. But when the big hand points down…" Dar forced Carmine's right arm to twist over his left painfully. "The door will be gone. You have until then to put all the kids back. Get the picture?"
Carmine nodded fearfully.
Gabby was skipping across the hall, pretending to be a real pony, whinnying and yelling "Giddyup!"
Then she came upon some boxes on which she climbed and pretended to be on top of the world.
Anakin soon turned the corner with Boba in hand. Padme was somewhere else with Lamenta and Omega.
"Gabby!" Anakin exclaimed when he saw the little girl.
"Whoa!" Gabby fell into a trash can that was next to the box.
"No."
"Hey, you. Halt." said a CDA agent.
Anakin and Boba both stopped when they saw the two agents heading for them. Boba took that as his cue to run for his life, while Anakin froze.
"He's the one. The one from the commercial."
"That's him." said the second agent.
"Can we get an autograph?" asked the first agent, holding a clipboard.
"Oh, sure. Of course." Anakin said, relieved.
"If you could, make that out to Stephanie, my daughter."
So, while Anakin was signing an autograph, Emerald and Comedia came by to pick up the trash.
"And then I told Magenta," said Emeraldi to Comedia. "It's the little things that count. Citrus remembered her favorite flower and everything. She'd be crazy not to go out with him."
"Aww. How romantic." Comedia sighed.
Neither of the Evermare sisters spotted Gabby climbing out from the trash can, losing one of her fuzzy boots in the process. And then she ran off again.
"Incoming!" Comedia said, getting the trash into the dump and then pressing a button with her horn to send it down below.
Anakin gasped in horror.
Anakin rushed down as fast as his vampire speed would let him to the window where you could see the garbage being processed and cubed. Anakin spotted the latest load on the conveyor belt and saw the little boot sticking out, thinking Gabby was still in there about to be crushed!
Gabby, meanwhile, was skipping again through the hall pretending to be a unicorn princess, when she bumped into a mutant about the same age as her. And they weren't alone. There was a little group of little kids, and they were being supervised by a chalactan woman named Depa Billaba.
"Oh, hello there. What's your name?" Depa smiled sweetly.
"Gabby."
Anakin watched in horror as the garbage was being crushed by all kinds of machines. He thought Gabby was in there, and he was horrified and nauseated by the sight of it all. He found himself struggling not to faint as the garbage met the final step: cubing.
Anakin approached one cube that had pieces of a fuzzy sparkly white boot sticking out of it. He panted as he took in the sight, trying desperately not to cry, but failing miserably.
Meanwhile, Carmine ran through the factory, calling for Anakin and/or Padme.
"Where are those two?" Carmine asked himself out loud.
"Carmine!" Caroline shouted, flying in front of Carmine in her swan form. "You've got a lot of explaining to do."
"Caroline, I don't have time for this. Can we please talk later?"
"And here I thought you cared."
"I do care about you, Caroline. You mean everything to me. I just have a bit of a family emergency I really need to take care of."
Carmine rushed through the locker room, where he spotted Obi-Wan and Mace talking.
"Hey, you guys seen Anakin or Padme anywhere?" Carmine asked.
"No, sorry." Mace said.
"Did you ask Caroline yet?" Obi-Wan said.
Carmine groaned and ran off. That pretty much answered Obi-Wan's question.
Caroline, meanwhile, was crying by herself. She was so upset by the events of the night before. Her birthday should have been the happiest day of the year, and Carmine and she were supposed to have a perfect night together. Dinner, ice skating, and maybe a night of making out. But instead, a trip to the CDA's contamination unit and her boyfriend not being there were what she got.
"I can't believe this!" Caroline growled. "When did he start avoiding me?"
Caroline looked at her phone, on which she had a picture of her and Carmine on stage together as they were dancing ballet together when they were younger. They'd been so close since high school, and now for some reason Carmine was avoiding her.
That was when Caroline spotted several missed calls from Carmine from last night. Curious, Caroline decided to check her voicemail, until she overheard some other mutants talking.
"Yeah, I heard that Bo-Katan said she overheard Anakin saying to Carmine, 'I wasn't the one caught cheating.'" said one of them. "Caroline's in for a real heartbreak."
"What?" Caroline got up and confronted the two mutants. "What are you talking about?"
"Oh, Caroline. Crazy gossip going around." said a Twi'lek. "Bo-Katan said something about Anakin confronting Carmine for cheating. At least, that's what I heard."
Caroline crossed her arms and said, "You don't know Carmine like I do. He would never cheat on me."
"I wouldn't say that. I've seen him go into the office with Padme a few times. Who knows how long that's been going on." said another mutant.
Now Caroline looked appalled for her friend's sake. Every man was attracted to Padme, no surprise there, but Padme refused all except Anakin, and she was engaged to him for a reason.
"Padme would never do that to Anakin!"
"I thought the same about my ex," said one girl. "Next thing I know, I catch him groping my sister."
Caroline groaned and moved away from these other mutants. She absolutely refused to believe anything they were saying about her boyfriend. But it turned out they weren't the only ones whispering these rumors.
People were whispering every time Caroline walked by, and from what she could make out, they'd seen Carmine walk into the office with Padme lots of times and Padme seeming all giggly after he left. But Caroline knew Carmine and Anakin were identical twins and could easily switch places.
"What am I thinking? Anakin will look for any excuse to make out with Padme." Caroline told herself.
Still, she began to worry. Carmine had been avoiding her since last night. Had it all been because he wanted to break up? No. It couldn't be. Or could it?
Caroline feared the worst. Before Carmine, she'd dated another guy she found out was a total player, which led to their breakup sophomore year in high school. But then Carmine came in and asked her out, and at first she'd accepted to teach her ex a lesson, but then they'd had their first kiss. Had it all been for naught?
Caroline decided she needed to get to the bottom of this right now! But first she needed to find Carmine.
Padme held Lamenta in her arm and Omega's hand in her other hand.
"We really need to get some leashes for you." Padme said. "Now, where could the others be?"
That was when Carmine and Boba bumped into each other at the end of the hall.
"Oh, Boba. Carmine. There you are." Padme said.
"Padme! Oh good. You have Lamenta and Omega. But… where are Anakin and Gabby?"
"I don't know."
"Well, let's find them. I found a solution and-"
That was when Carmine looked to his left and saw.
"Anakin!"
Anakin was carrying a cube of garbage in his arms. He was crying.
"Anakin, where's Gabby?" Padme asked, when she noticed her boyfriend's teary eyes. "What's wrong?"
Anakin held up the cube in his hand.
"Is that a block of trash?" Omega asked.
But then Carmine and Padme gasped when they recognized the material from Gabby's boot on it.
"Oh no." Carmine gasped.
And the other kids looked shocked and started to become teary themselves when they took in what this meant.
"I can still hear her little voice." Anakin whimpered, hugging the cube.
Suddenly, Carmine heard a sound like someone singing the alphabet. Carmine recognized that voice. It was Gabby's!
"Hey, I can hear her too." Carmine said.
"Gabby, are you in there?" Omega asked the cube, moving her ear closer to it.
But then there were more kids singing the song, and that had the others confused.
"I've heard of clown cars but not a clown cube." Boba commented.
But then the others looked down the hall to see the group of little mutants Depa was leading. And one of them stopped to see a familiar face.
"Kitty!" Gabby exclaimed.
"Gabby!" Anakin exclaimed, dropping the cube and rushing over to the child.
Anakin tossed Gabby up and down and nuzzled her little nose.
"Gabby, you're all right. I was so worried about you." Anakin looked at Gabby with a stern look for a moment. "Don't you ever run away from me again, young lady."
Anakin hugged Gabby again and sighed with relief.
"I'm just so glad you're safe."
"My, what an affectionate father." Depa commented.
Anakin looked at Gabby again and couldn't help smiling again when she smiled at him. He couldn't deny it any longer, he was getting attached to Gabby. But he couldn't keep her. The girl's parents were bound to be really worried about her now.
"As sweet as this reunion has been," said Carmine, taking Lamenta and starting to walk down the hall. " We really oughta be-whoa!"
Carmine didn't see a banana peel on the floor, and when he stepped on it, he slipped and did a flip and landed on his back, Lamenta landing on his stomach after she flew in the air for a little bit.
The fun little ride she had and the funny accident had all four disguised kids laughing, which in turn made all the lights go out!
"Okay, new rule." Padme whisper-yelled. "No more making the kids laugh!"
"Agreed." Carmine said. "Come on!"
Padme and Anakin ran through the hall with Carmine
"I still don't understand. You got the kids' door?" Anakin said.
The kids seemed to get scared when they heard that, but the mutants were moving them too quickly for the kids to try and run away.
"Yeah. Turned out Dar had the card key all along. That's why Padme couldn't find it."
"It's more than that." Padme said. "I've noticed over the last few weeks that several card keys and files have gone missing."
Earlier….
Padme opened a few file cabinets to show Carmine in the office earlier that day.
"So, it's a file cabinet. What's strange about that?" Carmine had said.
"Look again."
Carmine wiped his glasses off and looked again. They looked… half-empty. That was strange.
Normally, when files were missing from the file cabinets, it was for one of three reasons: the child had become a teenager, the file needed to be updated because the child had moved or overcame a fear, or because it was a dead door case.
"We've lost a lot of doors lately. Maybe that's why."
"I'm pretty sure we haven't lost that many." Padme said. "I've checked from A to Z, and haven't been able to find our kids' files."
"Isn't there a database or backup files or something?"
Padme thought that was a great idea. So, she decided to check the database for missing files. But, she found something else that shocked her. Quickly, Padme printed something out and placed it into a folder before rushing Carmine out of there.
"Wait a sec! What did you find?"
"I'll explain when we find Anakin!"
Present…
"Please be there, please be there!" Carmine prayed. That was when he spotted a door at a station. "There it is! Just like Dar said."
"Dar?!" Anakin and Padme both gasped.
"Carmine, wait!" Padme said.
All four kids got scared and started to run and hide. Gabby immediately jumped out from Anakin's arms, and Lamenta tried to squirm out of Carmine's, but he held onto her.
"Lamenta! You're going home. It'll be fine." Carmine said.
But Lamenta jumped out from Carmine's arms and ran to hide. Carmine thought it seemed strange that the kids didn't seem to want to go back in their door.
"Gabby, it's okay." Anakin said, getting Gabby out from under the table.
"Omega, Boba. Don't be scared." Padme soothed, looking for the younger twins.
"Guys! Come on, we gotta move if we wanna get these kids home."
"No! Don't make us go in there!" Omega panicked.
"We don't wanna go back!" Boba cried.
"Carmine, what are you thinking? We can't trust Dar, he's after the kids." Anakin said.
"Need I remind you that your bringing them along is what got my love life in jeopardy in the first place?" Carmine said.
"Look, I didn't know what else to do then. But I do know we can't trust Dar."
"No go!" Gabby cried.
"Well, is there any other way we're gonna get them in there?" Carmine said.
"Carmine, the kids will be in even more danger if they go in there." Padme said.
Carmine was even more confused. He thought his brother and sister-in-law-to-be were crazy. He didn't trust Dar too well either, but he knew the kids couldn't stay here. Thus, he decided he needed to show them it wasn't dangerous.
"Look, I'll prove to you it's safe."
Carmine opened the door. Nothing seemed wrong. Then, he went into the room. It was dark in there.
"Carmine!" Anakin whisper-yelled.
Carmine looked around the room. However, he was confused. He only saw a bed. No toys, no children's storybooks, not even a drawing on the wall. This did not look like any kid's bedroom he'd ever seen. What was going on?
But Carmine didn't have a moment to think, as he found himself captured in a big box of some sort and locked in.
Quickly, Anakin, Padme, and the kids hid under the tables as out with the box came Dar. Dar walked over to a cart of scream canisters, which was revealed not to be scream canisters at all, but a much bigger box disguised as such, in which Dar placed the crate holding Carmine.
Everyone stayed silent as Dar sent the door away once more and began to push the cart away, when Gabby flopped to the floor with a small grunt. Unfortunately, Dar heard that, and he quickly turned invisible to start searching.
Everyone froze and remained silent again, uncertain if that would be enough now that they couldn't see their enemy.
Dar slowly became visible again as he slinked closer and closer to where Anakin and Gabby were hiding, and he would've discovered them if the bell hadn't just rung, prompting Dar to head out as scarers and assistants were returning to the scare floor.
Anakin suddenly looked determined; he was not going to let whatever fate Dar had in store for the kids happen to his little brother.
"Let's go!" Anakin said.
Anakin ran in the direction he'd seen Dar go, Padme and the kids following close, passing through other mutants on the way.
"Anakin, where have you been all day?" Obi-Wan asked, but got no answer.
The two mutants and four kids followed Dar quickly, but far enough so he wouldn't see them, following until they got to a dead end, which had everyone confused.
"Where did he go?" Padme wondered out loud.
"Carmine?" Anakin called quietly.
"Kids, stay together." Padme said. "Don't go anywhere."
There were carts of canisters in the hall, so Anakin and Padme checked them to see if Carmine was inside any of them.
"Carmine, where are you?"
Unfortunately, every cart was real with real canisters. The kids, however, looked at the wall of tools at the end of the hall. Omega and Boba had the same idea in their minds. So, they walked over to the tools with Gabby and Lamenta, the older ones reaching the higher tools, and the younger ones the lower tools. It wasn't until Lamenta moved a wrench to the left that it was revealed to be a switch that opened… a secret door!
"A door!" Lamenta exclaimed.
"Lamenta, way to go!" Anakin said.
But when the kids looked inside.
"It sure is dark in there." Omega said.
"It'll be okay, kids." Padme said. "Everyone, hold hands. Don't let go, okay?"
So, the older kids each took one of the adults' hands, while Padme and Anakin held the younger ones.
The door closed behind the group as they entered the dark tunnel. There was a light at the end, which they followed into a much bigger hallway. Suddenly, there were voices nearby.
"Yes! I got a kid. One of the older ones, anyway." Dar said.
"Oh, huzzah!" Jinx's voice answered.
Padme and Anakin peered between some pipes, through which they spotted Dar and Jinx with the cart Carmine was trapped in.
"Great news. Not that I was concerned." Jinx said.
"Just get over here and help me!" Dar yelled.
Dar opened the cart, and together he and Jinx pulled out the crate in which they thought they'd captured one of the older kids.
"This kid is heavier than I remember." Dar hissed.
The two mutants carried the box over to a seat of some sort, and dumped the content to find that inside the box, was Carmine!
"Carmine Jinn?!" Dar said. "Where are those brats you four-eyed cretin of the sea?" Dar pronounced 'cretin' with a short E sound.
"First of all, it's pronounced, creetin." Carmine said. "If you're gonna threaten me, at least do it properly. Second, you're nuts if you think kidnapping me is gonna help you cheat into the top!"
Dar chuckled and said, "You still think this is about that stupid scare record?"
If Carmine wasn't scared before, he definitely was now.
"Not anymore. If you weren't cheating, then what were you planning to do with those kids?" Carmine asked, starting to get up, until Dar pushed him back in and pulled down a bar on which he chained Carmine's wrists.
"I'm about to revolutionize the scaring industry. When I do, even the great Anakin Skywalker-Jinn is gonna be working for me."
"Uh… it sounds like someone's been a busy bee."
"First I need to know where those brats are, and you're gonna tell me."
Anakin was groaning inside. Why wouldn't Carmine just use his voice already?
In case you didn't know, sirens had very powerful voices, most infamously known for luring sailors to a watery grave. But what some people don't know is that sirens can use their voices as a weapon too, and Carmine didn't show it at work, but he had a powerful voice.
"I don't know where they are."
But Dar didn't believe Carmine.
"Really, I don't."
Jinx pressed some buttons on a panel, and down came a big scary machine of some sort moving toward Carmine. It looked like a vacuum of some sort with a bunch of scream canisters attached to it.
"Say hello to the scream extractor." Dar said.
"Hello." Carmine said nervously with a gulp.
Dar walked over to the panel, Carmine begging him to let him go.
"Come on, can't we talk about this?"
Dar activated the machine, which made the tube at the front of the scream extractor move towards Carmine. Carmine tried to wriggle out of the restraints, to no avail. He breathed heavily as it got closer and closer, and then soon Carmine could do only one thing: scream like he was in a horror movie.
Carmine's scream was so high and loud Dar, Jinx, and the ones hiding all had to cover their ears. And the scream extractor sparked and malfunctioned before it stopped completely.
"Great, you broke it." Dar scolded Jinx.
"What? He's the one who screamed." Jinx said.
"Just go fix the machine!" Dar exclaimed, scaring the young Twi'lek to go to work.
Carmine sighed with relief. At least with the machine damaged, it bought him some time to try and escape.
Suddenly, Dar noticed a wire moving, and he followed it to investigate.
Dar followed the wire he'd seen move until he got to the back of another hall where he found the end of the wire, and he discovered another problem. The machine was unplugged.
Carmine kept wiggling his wrists around to get the restraints loose.
"Jinx?" Carmine said. "Jinx, please listen. You got a car? 'Cause I got a really nice one, and if you let me go, it's yours. Please, Jinx."
"I'm sorry, Carmine, but Dar says I'm not allowed to fraternize with victims of his evil plot."
"Why are you doing this? Did you enter this willingly, or does Dar have dirt on you?"
"None of your business."
Jinx went back to working.
Carmine sighed, "Alright, I didn't wanna have to do this."
Jinx wasn't sure what Carmine was talking about until…
Carmine:
Oh-woah (oh-woah-oh), oh-woah
You didn′t know that 'cha fell
Oh-woah (oh-woah-oh), oh-woah
Now that you′re under my spell
Blindsided by the beat
Clapping your hands, stompin' your feet
You didn't know that ′cha fell
Oh-oh, oh-oh, oh
Now you′ve fallen under my spell
(Oh-oh-oh, oh-oh-oh)
Jinx tried to resist, but found himself in a trance of some sort.
I've got the music
Makes you move it (makes you move it)
Got the song that makes ya lose it (you lose it)
I say, "Jump"
You say, "How high?"
Put your hands up to the sky
We′ve got the music
Makes you move it
Got the song that makes ya lose it
I say, "Jump"
You say, "How high?"
Put your hands up to the sky
Oh-woah (oh-woah-oh), oh-woah
You didn't know that ′cha fell
Oh-woah (oh-woah-oh), oh-woah
Now that you're under my spell
And Jinx undid the restraints around Carmine's wrists. But the moment Carmine was out of the seat, something black swooped in and placed Jinx in the chair and restraints. So fast, in fact, that Carmine fell down and lost something.
"Hey! My glasses!"
Meanwhile, Dar plugged the machine back in, which made the machine start up again, although it started making weird noises, probably because some damage was still there. And when Dar got back to the room, he gasped when he saw Jinx being tortured by the scream extractor.
"What happened?! Where's Carmine?"
Dar turned off the machine. Jinx looked very pale, and he was too weak to speak, so all he could do was point in the direction Carmine went before collapsing.
Carmine and the others ran for their lives through the hall to escape. Carmine quickly began texting someone on his phone, no doubt Caroline.
"This is crazy! He'll kill us all." Carmine said.
"Dar was actually going to use that on these poor kids!" Anakin said in disbelief, looking at Gabby in his arms.
"That's it. We can start a new life far away. Goodbye, Mutants Inc. Goodbye, Mr. and Mrs. Palpatine!"
Carmine opened an exit door, but Anakin didn't follow.
"No, Carmine, wait." Anakin said, running in the opposite direction.
Carmine looked back, unsure why his brother wasn't following him.
"Hey, what are you doing?"
"Follow me, I have an idea."
But neither Carmine nor Padme like this idea one bit.