Family Found: Chapter 11

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Noelani winced at the pain that was throbbing in her skull. As she became more aware, a multitude of aches and pains flickered across her awareness. Finally, she felt the arms wrapped tightly around her, the rough-hewn floor against one side of her body and the press of a chest against her back.

She blinked her eyes open, a hazy cone of light extended from her handlamp half a meter away from her. She twisted around in the arms that were holding her finding herself face to face with Ben Skywalker. Dried blood decorated one side of his face, looking oddly black in the dim light.

She twisted her head as much as she was able, looking around, seeing the crumpled roof that surrounded them.

She tried to slip out of his arms, but they tightened against her, pulling her closer.

"B-Ben?"

His eyes flickered open. Shut. Then open again. She saw the confusion and pain which flashed in them. He then started to turn his head, and winced as the Force flooded with his pain.

"Noelani?"

"Are you all right, Ben?"

"Uhm..yeah. Yeah, I'm okay. I think."

She looked him in the eyes, finding a shining blue – almost the exact color she sees while looking in the mirror. She could feel the heat of a blush rising to her cheeks.

"Do you think you can let me go now?"

"Oh," Ben began, and Noelani ccould just make out a blush cropping up on his cheeks as well. "Yeah. Sorry about that."

He released her, and a small part of her was saddened by him taking away his arms from around her. She had almost felt safe and comfortable there. Giving her head a small shake to chase away those feelings she looked around again.

She frowned as she doesn't see Kor or Poll. "Where are they?"

"Who?'

Noelani's frown deepened as she turned back toward Ben. "Who? Just our friends that we came in here with."

She noticed as Ben looked around the room as well. "More importantly, where are we?"

"Huh?"

Ben pointed towards the center of the room. "This isn't the same place that we were. There was a podium. It's not there now."

Noelani frowned again as she stood up and walked towards the center of the room.

Looking down at the floor where the podium should be. Where before there was a shaft of metal and stone that came up out of the floor to about her stomach now the floor was smooth and unbroken - though covered slightly in the rubble of the collapsed ceiling.

Still frowning she glanced up, and shined her light upwards as well, seeing the hole through which she must have fallen.

With her free hand she scratched at the top of her head. "I don't remember falling."

Ben shook his head. "Neither do I."

Noelani shined her flashlight across the various walls, and finally found an exit. Looking around again, she shrugged her shoulders and said, "I guess we go this way."

She noticed Ben turn the direction of her light as he nodded his head. "Unless you want to try to jump up the hole."

She shook her head. "We don't know how much floor is left up there. Or if it would fall down on us if we did."

"Good point."

Without anymore discussion the two teenagers walked down the darkened hallway.

The walls were featureless and there were no doors or markings. A sense of foreboding hung on the air, and Noelani stretched out with the Force. She could feel the others, small pinpricks of pain and confusion, indistinct and distant.

She frowned as she realized that she even felt Ben in the distance. Then she turned her light on him where he walked beside her. She stopped and he did as well.

"Who, what are you?" She asked, suddenly afraid.

"I'm Ben, what do you mean?"

She shook her head. "I can feel Ben in the Force, and you're not him."

The Ben before her laughed, a dark guttural sound, and then he seemed to melt. Ben's handsome features slowly dissolved into a mass of shadows and fear. The shade seemed to grow taller and towered over Noelani.

"I am Ben. I am the Ben that will be, here to help you in what you will become."

She took a step back, tossing her head side to side in denial until she bumped up against the wall. "I… I… go away!"

He laughed again, and then he lifted his hand pointing down the dark corridor. "Not going to happen. Look at your future."

Noelani looked in the direction he was pointing and saw herself. But at the same time she saw someone she did not, could not, recognize. The girl that stood a few meters away was older; her blonde hair was pulled back, and tinged with pink highlights from the blood-red lightsaber she held. A thin scar stretched from the top of her right temple, and ran down the side of her face, ending in a burn pattern at her throat. A malice-filled smile graced her lips, a mockery of joy that found no home in the girl's yellow and orange tinged eyes.

Noelani could hear herself utter a short weak sound of fear, and then she dropped to her knees, her handlight skittering away from her. She instinctively covered her face with her hands and began shaking her head in a negative motion. "No…no… no… NO!"

The shade laughed again. "Yes. And you're going to happily embrace that future. You're going to like being a Sith."

Her hands shot out, held straight in front of her, her fingers splayed wide and she screamed, "NO!" Then Noleani unleashed a wave of Force energy at the shade - a wave of energy which passed harmlessly through it and stroke the far wall, shattering it.

The future her, walked up to the shade of Ben and wrapped her arms around one of his, looking down at her. "Don't worry. You'll have more fun, and be happier like this."

She once more retreated behind her hands, allowing them to hide her face. Hide the tears that had sprung up to burn her eyes.

"No." She whispered in a hoarse, harsh voice.

Silence fell around Noelani, and the only thing she could hear was the ragged sound of her breathing. She huddled there on the ground for a few more minutes, her ragged breathing calming down into near silent whimpers.

Finally she looked up to discover that she was alone.

"Ben?"

No one was there to answer her, and she frowned She stood up, looking around her trying to figure out where she was going to go now, and how she was going to meet back up with her friends. Sighing, she continued walking down the hallway, hoping to find a way back to the others. To anyone.

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Ben lifted his head and frowned.

Before the collapse he was with his friends, and had even thrown himself forward to protect Noelani, but now he was alone.

Without anyone to help him.

He looked around the room, enhancing his night vision with a Force trick that Jacen had taught him, one which allows him to see in the nearly perfect darkness that he was currently in. Four blank walls. A blank ceiling. And finally, a blank floor.

He sighed.

Wondering just how it was that he got into a room without any entrances.

Wondering exactly what was going to happen to him in here.

If he was going to be rescued.

If he was going to die here. Alone. With no one knowing where he was. His body decaying into nothingness and dust never to be disturbed, let alone found.

For a moment he wondered why that did not fill him with dread and fear.

He shrugged his shoulders with the realization that he was not scared of death.

Death was something he has seen. It was something he had handed out.

There was a part of him that looked forward to it. The unending embrace of death, which would allow him to escape the pressures of his life. Which would allow him to escape being Luke Skywalker's son.

Yet a part of him, a small still-innocent voice in the back of his mind, asked if that alone, that utter lack of a fear of death, was something he should be scared of.

Suddenly, Ben was no longer alone. Sitting across from him was a boy about his age, maybe a year or two older. Brown hair, brown eyes and dressed in an orange jumpsuit.

Ben recognized him from somewhere, but could not quite place it.

The boy looked around the room and then finally returned his gaze to Ben. "Nice little spot you've picked out for your death."

Ben shrugged his shoulders. "Not like it matters."

The boy nodded his head a few times. A bobbing motion which made Ben want to hit him. "True… true… not much matters to the dead."

Ben frowned, and replied, "I'm not dead yet."

The boy laughed. "Aren't you? Look around you; you're sitting here in this room doing nothing. If that's not death I'm not sure what is."

"What would you have me do?"

The boy shrugged his shoulders. "I'm just here to guide you to the questions; I can't ask them or answer them."

Ben looked away. "Then what good are you?"

The boy grinned, a lopsided slash of the mouth which Ben has seen so many times over the years. It was a grin which Ben practiced in front of the mirror when he was younger.

Finally, he spoke again, the grin not quite leaving his lips. "Now, isn't that a good question."

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Kor Res'sal rubbed on her shoulders, the biting cold of the catacombs striking her through her fur. She slowly ambled along, searching for the others, or just a warm place to hide and rest. But everywhere she went, all she feels was that biting cold.

Shivering, she exhaled strongly, her breath a white plume in front of her.

She looked around, and for the first time since she started her training, she was scared.

She dropped to her knees, feeling the tears as they slipped down her face, and froze into the little drops of ice in the fur of her muzzle.

"I don't want to die. Not like this. Not in the cold." She said to the empty air around her, hoping for an answer but not really expecting it.

To her surprise, she was answered. "Then what are you going to do about it, young Jedi?"

She turned her head and saw a shimmering blue form standing a few meters further down the hall. He was dressed in old fashioned Jedi robes, similar to the ones worn by the Jedi in the murals on the upper floors.

Kor frowned. She knew she was alone. "What can I do? I don't have anything to stay warm with, and even if I did, I'm stuck in these tunnels."

The figure shrugged his shoulders. "That is the question, is it not?"

Then he disappeared.

Kor's shoulders hitched as she fought back tears. She stretched out her hand to where the figure had been standing and cried out, "No! Come back… tell me what I need to do. Tell me how to survive…"

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"Hello?"

Poll's voice echoed back to him, a sure indication that he was in a wide open area. He did not know for certain because there was no light at all.

Just unending, complete, unbroken darkness. A black so thick Poll could feel it pressing down on his shoulders, attempting to crush him.

He dropped to his knees, feeling around him looking for his handlight, fighting back against the irrational terror which gripped his heart.

For as long as he could remember, the darkness has terrified him. Nightmares of being trapped in the dark terrorized his sleep and the irrational fear of it has long plagued his Jedi training.

He let out a sigh as he could not find his handlight and straightened up – straining his eyes trying to see.

I'm a Jedi, he thought to himself; a vain attempt to increase his fortitude, to keep from breaking down in tears and terror-stricken sobs.

A deep, guttural voice emanated from the darkness. "You young Jedi have gotten so pathetic."

Poll twisted around, trying to see. Finally, he found his voice, "Wh-who's there?"

The voice barked a laugh. "Just a ghost of the past, youngling. The more important question is… who are you?"

"I don't-"

The voice sighed deeply, interrupting Poll. "You don't understand. How many times have I had to answer that question? Yet the Force felt I need to do so yet again."

Poll frowned, trying to figure things out.

"Good. You're less scared. Now think boy," the voice growled at him. "You're trapped here, all alone. What are you going to do?"

Poll shook his head. "I don't…"

The voice sighed again.

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