In the simulation hall of the building, Jar Jar was making faces to scare the robot kid, but failing miserably.
"No, no, no, no!" Miraj shouted. "What was that sorry excuse for a scare?!"
"Jar Jar, you are trying to scare the child, not lull it to sleep." Palpatine said.
"Mesa was going for an approach with scary faces." Jar Jar shrugged.
Palpatine facepalmed. "How many times must I repeat? It's all about presence. About how you enter the room."
Just then, Anakin burst in.
"Mr. Palpatine!"
"Anakin. Perfect timing." Palpatine smiled.
"No, no, sir. You don't understand."
"Come now, show these mutants how it's done."
Palpatine took Gabby from Anakin's arms and placed her into Padme's.
"Sir, I can't. Sir, you have to listen to me."
But Palpatine was too eager for the demonstration to listen.
"Pay attention, everyone. You're about to see the best in the business."
"Reset the simulator."
The simulator was reset. The kids were confused. They really practiced scaring innocent children for a living? Gabby, however, was a little too curious for her own good, and she crawled over to the area where Anakin was to do the demonstration. The twins spotted this and quickly went after her.
"Alright, Anakin. Give us a good vampire screech." Palpatine said.
"Mr. Palpatine, there's no time for this."
"What are you waiting for. Roar."
"But sir.
"Roar."
Anakin sighed. Palaptine clearly wasn't going to listen until this was done. So, without a second thought, Anakin put on his voice mask and hissed behind it, making his hiss sound louder and deeper, waking the kid a little, and then he shifted into a giant bat with glowing red eyes, and he spread his enormous wings with a loud roar-like hiss. It scared the fake kid, but also three real kids he didn't see.
All three children were terrified by what they saw, and by the time Anakin was done, the three kids ran away crying while the other mutants applauded Anakin's fearsomeness.
"Well done. Right this way, everyone. I hope you've learned a lesson today."
Anakin gasped and reverted to human form when he saw Gabby running off last.
"Gabby?" Anakin went in the direction where he saw Gabby run. But Gabby whimpered and hid from him. "Gabby, wait. Don't be scared."
Gabby only got more scared when Anakin said that. Boba ran in and picked Gabby up and hugged her, Omega joining in for extra protection. But even the older kids were afraid of Anakin.
Anakin took off his mask, when he realized the deep voice might've been what increased the fear.
"Kids, it's me." Anakin said gently.
But Boba tripped on a wire, and both his and Gabby's wigs fell off, revealing their real hair, and Omega also tripped, losing her mask in the process.
"The children!" Palpatine gasped.
"Sir, they aren't toxic." Carmine said, still holding Lamenta. "None of them are."
"What?"
"I know it sounds crazy, but trust me."
While Carmine was explaining what happened to Palpatine, Anakin was still trying to get the kids to trust him.
"Gabby? Boba? Omega?" But the kids backed away again. "No, no, no. no, it's okay. I was just-"
But Gabby started crying more at that point, and Omega and Boba both hugged her, both of them afraid to get near Anakin.
"No, don't be scared. That wasn't real. It's just a… I was just…"
But that was when Anakin looked at the screen and saw multiple shots of him being scary in both forms, and one shot showed the three kids, the fear in their eyes and how much of a monster Anakin appeared to be.
Anakin started to question his line of work. Was this what it was like for all the other kids who were being scared every night? Them possibly being scarred for life? He didn't like any of what he was seeing.
"And he was going to test it out on these innocent kids." Carmine continued. "Now that we have them, he is trying to kill us."
Gabby ran over to Padme, who picked her up and comforted her. Omega and Boba hid behind Padme too.
"This whole thing is Dar's fault!" Carmine said.
"Dar?" Palpatine said.
"Yes, and we can take you to his secret lab in this very factory." Padme finished.
Palpatine sighed. "How could this happen?"
"Yes, how could this happen?" Miraj said. "Remind me to fire Dar when this matter is taken care of."
"I'm the one to do the actual firing, Dear." Palpatine looked at Padme and Carmine. "Does anyone else know about this?"
"No, Sir." Padme said.
"Good. This company cannot afford any more bad publicity." Palpatine proceeded to take the younger kids into his arms while Miraj took Boba and Omega by their wrists.
"Before we do anything else, let's take care of the children.
Anakin looked down, feeling extremely guilty for all of this.
Palpatine pressed some buttons on a panel to send the simulation door away. Everyone thought he was calling forth the humans' door, including the humans themselves, prompting all four of them to start squirming and trying to run away again.
"I never thought things would come to this," said Palpatine. "Not in my factory."
Anakin and Carmine were confused by the children's behavior though. Why were the children trying to avoid going in their door? What could possibly be scary to them in their own world that was worse than what they saw in the mutant world?
"I'm sorry all three of you got mixed up into this, especially you, Anakin. But now we can set everything straight again. For the good of the company."
"Before you open the door, Mr. Palpatine," said Padme. "There's something about these kids you really need to know."
But before Padme could say anything else, the new door arrived. However, when the trio looked at the door, they were confused. The door they saw was brown and looked old.
"Uh, Sir? That's not their door." Carmine said.
"Yes, I know." Palpatine said.
That was when Dar appeared and opened the door to reveal a dark rainy forest of some sort.
"It's yours." Miraj smirked.
Padme and the twins gasped, and then all three of them were pushed in!
Anakin tried to run back through the door, but Palpatine closed it before he could, and when Anakin opened it again, he was only met by an empty door frame.
"NO!"
Anakin frantically opened and closed the door, trying to get it to work, but to no avail.
"It's no use, Anakin. We're banished! We're in the human world!" Carmine shouted, unable to stand up because all the rain got his legs wet and turned them into a tail. "What a great idea, going to your old pal Palpatine. Too bad he and his terrifying wife were in on the whole thing. All you had to do was listen to me for once! But you didn't, did you?"
But Anakin wasn't listening.
"You're still not listening!"
Carmine whacked his brother with his slimy tail and then threw himself on top of him, the two of them tumbling down a grassy hill, landing in a big puddle of mud, where the twins got all dirty as they wrestled each other.
"Enough! Both of you!" Padme shouted. "Stop behaving like children!"
"He started it!" The twins said, pointing accusingly at each other.
"Look, we can worry about whose fault this is later." Padme said. "But now, we have to find a way back to our world to help those kids."
"How exactly are we supposed to do that?" Anakin said.
"First, we need to find some shelter." Padme said.
And Padme was right. It was raining really hard, and it was freezing outside.
"Um, that's gonna be hard for me since I can't exactly keep my legs dry." Carmine said.
Anakin sighed. "I got you."
Anakin picked up his brother and carried him along the path as they and Padme looked for shelter in the forest, hoping to find a cave or something.
They walked for a long time until they came across a lake, where Padme thought it might be a good idea to get a drink.
"Even if the scream extractor weren't dangerous," said Anakin. "I doubt the kids wanna see me again."
"Ani, you didn't mean to scare them. Besides, they're much more afraid of someone else."
"Let me guess, Palpatine?"
"No."
"Miraj, then? Because I can't say I blame them for-"
"No, not her either. Their foster parents."
Anakin and Padme were both shocked by that revelation. Foster parents were what the kids were afraid of?
Suddenly, the lake started to glow, startling the trio as a figure emerged from it. A woman with long hair the same color as the twins', and she was dressed in blue robes.
"Welcome to the island of Avalon," said the woman. "I am the Lady of the Lake."
But the twins recognized the lady of the lake, and not for the reason you might think.
"Grandma?" the twins gasped.
The Lady of the Lake, whose actual name was Miranda, brought the trio to a cavern with a river running through it.
Everyone got themselves dry as best as they could, Padme using her nymph powers to summon some logs and build a fire.
"Yes, I've been alive all this time." Miranda said.
When Anakin and Carmine were teenagers, their grandmother used to work at Mutant's Inc as an accountant, when one day she mysteriously vanished. Everyone thought Miranda was dead, but it turned out she was actually banished, and she became known as another Lady of the Lake.
You know how there are lots of people who claim to have seen Nessie the Loch Ness Monster, BigFoot, or the Abominable Snowman, but all their pictures, sketches, or verbal descriptions are different? Well, now you know why.
"Now my question, how did all of you get here?"
Carmine and Anakin explained to their grandmother from the beginning everything that happened with the children until they eventually discovered the scream extractor, and then they were banished to this rainy forest while those four children were going to be experimented on.
"They got the machine working?!" Miranda exclaimed. "It's worse than I remember."
"You knew about the scream extractor?" said Padme.
"Why do you think I was banished?"
According to Miranda, she'd forgotten to give a file to Miraj before leaving work one day, and she followed her until she spotted her entering a secret room. Then, Miranda went in and that was when she discovered blueprints for the scream extractor as well as a data plan for kidnapping children to collect their screams by force.
"I tried to go to the police, but Palpatine and his wife staged an accident and banished me here."
"And you've been here the last eleven years?" Carmine said.
"Indeed. You can't imagine how much I've dreamed I'd see my beautiful grandbabies again." Miranda caressed Carmine's cheek.
"Why didn't you ever try to come back?"
"I would have, but before banishing me, Palpatine threatened to harm you and the rest of the family if he caught me anywhere in the mutant world. It was the only way I could keep you safe. So, my best bet was to hope you would somehow discover the truth."
Miranda couldn't believe how big her grandsons had gotten. She never even got to be there for their high school graduation. But she was happy to see Anakin engaged.
"Are you and Caroline married yet, Carmy?"
"Actually…" Carmine pulled out the ring. That was the only thing he'd left out of the explanation. "I was going to propose yesterday, but then the commotion happened."
Anakin sat down, curled up into a ball. He couldn't stop thinking about how the three children looked at him before. But then something else was on his mind.
"Padme, what did you mean when you said the kids were afraid of their foster parents?"
Padme reached into her bag and pulled out the missing files she recovered. Inside were pictures of the children, all four of them. Each of them was a foster child orphaned in different ways.
Lamenta was found left on an orphanage door step, her parentage unknown. Gabby's full name was Gabriella Starling, and she lost her parents in a car accident when she was smaller. Boba and Omega were twins in the Fett Family and they'd had several other brothers, but they all got separated when placed into the foster system after their father, who was a cop, was lost in the line of duty, and their mother got sick.
In the photos however, the kids were found to have been moved through several group homes, and after each one, they were more scarred and bruised than in the previous pictures. In various reports, it was noted that the children were terrified, shaking, emotional, and mistrusting of most adults.
Anakin couldn't believe his eyes, and neither could Carmine. Those poor kids had been abused by adults who were supposed to have taken them in and given them a home, a safe place to live and be loved. But instead, all of them were in it just for money, and they treated the kids like servants instead of children, giving them little to eat, dank places to sleep, and no toys. No wonder their room didn't look like other kids' rooms, or why they were so terrified to go back to their door!
"Those people are the real monsters." Padme said. "And they don't need fangs or claws to do so."
"It's true." Miranda said.
"I can't believe this!" Carmine said, looking at Lamenta's profile again. "How could anyone treat this sweet little girl so badly?"
"Um, there were three others." Anakin pointed out.
"Yeah, they matter too."
Anakin noticed the way Carmine looked at Lamenta. Then he realized exactly what was happening.
"Carmine, you've bonded with her, haven't you?"
"What?! No. Me? Bond with a human. How could I bond with a kid who's so adorably shy and sweet, makes me want to be a better- Oh my ghost, I've bonded with her!"
"And I've bonded with the three others." Anakin admitted. "We can't let Palpatine do this to them, or any other kids."
"I might know a way back." Miranda said. "But it's risky. See, there is a village-"
"A village?!" exclaimed the trio.
"Are there kids in it?" Anakin asked.
"Yes."
"Where is it?"
"Through the forest, but getting in will be a challenge. There are folks around there who believe in monsters. If they see any of your mutant features, you're government scientist bait."
"Well, we have to get there!" Carmine said.
"I thought you were upset with me ruining your love life."
"I am, and I'll get you for that later. But I can't let Palpatine hurt Lamenta…. Or the other kids."
Anakin thought it was fair enough that Carmine was upset with him, but he also agreed they had to get to their world again to save the kids. Getting into a kid's room would be easy, but facing Palpatine and the others… they were going to need some help.
Miranda guided her grandsons and Padme through the forest once the rain settled some. It was nighttime, so the forest was pretty dark. Luckily, Anakin had night vision, which he used to help guide the others so they could get through the forest and avoid any bears, pits they might fall in, or low branches they might hit.
Anakin took on his bat form to go faster, while Carmine swam through the waters with Miranda, and Padme ran as quickly as she could. With Anakin's night vision and Miranda's expertise, the group was able to avoid all the obstacles they came across. Well… almost all of them.
"Heads up!" Anakin exclaimed, ducking a low branch, only for it to hit Carmine in the face.
"Ouch!"
Carmine spat out some leaves and fixed his glasses.
"When this is over, remind me to strangle you." Carmine said.
Eventually, they came across the village, where sure enough, there were kids screaming, no doubt because of scarers coming to visit them tonight.
"Let's go save our kids." Anakin said.