『The Dark Place』

The temperature suddenly dropped, but the silence didn't change. It was all the same, but different, far more familiar... Too familiar. The feeling of the ground was cold, sterile. Nothingness, the feeling of nothingness was strong, like wound in the force.

She stirred against a barren wall that gave no sensation of shelter or protection. Isolation was the only thing she felt here. She began to stir in her sleep, until she felt a head full of hair against her cheek.

She couldn't help but smile, perhaps she was having a nightmare, and she wasn't where she believed she was. The girl shifted closer to what she preserved as warmth.

That was until then there was the all too well acquainted sound of a door swishing open, a noise she always dreaded following her sessions with the Anomid scientist known as Jarak.

A pair of feet came rushing in.

As she peaked her eyes open, her irises flickered from blue to gold for a split second before turning to their natural color. A spark of hatred, and loneliness, filled her until she felt a pair of warm hands around her own.

Her gaze hidden by her lashes, her sights took in the form of a woman in black and white armor. A Knight of the Zakuul, the one who had abandoned her, her mother.

Senya was kneeling down in front of her daughter, looking her over, before taking a glance towards the unconscious boy beside them. She hadn't even noticed him until she entered the room.

"Vaylin," she whispered as she nudged her daughter lightly in the shoulder. She then reached over and nudged at the boy. "I can't carry them both," she gave a quick glance behind herself.

Ento opened his eyes a few seconds later, glancing over towards the woman in armor without moving his head from Vaylin's shoulder. "How did we get here...? Where are we?"

"I don't know..." Vaylin responded as she opened her eyes the rest of the way, her eyes resting on her mothers, locking their gazes together in an intense glare. "It... It feels like we're on Nathema, but how?"

Groaning slightly, he used the force to call his saber to his hand.

"What do you mean?" Senya immediately took step back the moment she saw he was armed, releasing her daughter's hands and reaching for her own saber, only to notice... Her weapon was gone and Vaylin herself was holding it. "When did you.."

The duo then stood up.

Vaylin looked over her mother's lightsaber, then took out the one which was within her own sleeve, much like how Ento had been carrying his own. She compared them.

Senya's eyes widened seeing her daughter had a lightsaber. She had already been surprised that she had appeared contrast to her visions. As she was now dressed in white clothes similar to how she was dressed when she had been training, she felt as if the force was playing a trick. Her gaze moved towards the small wooden carving in the center of the room, then back to her daughter. "We have to go now!"

Ento looked to Vaylin, then towards the woman, a brow raised. "What year is it?"

Senya gave the boy a once over, he wasn't from the planet of Zakuul, not from the Eternal Empire. Thanks to her awareness, especially with that braid in his hair, she could tell the boy was a member of the Jedi Order. "Eleven years After the Treaty of Coruscant."

The Empire had been eagerly watching the battlefields across the Galaxy between the Sith and the Jedi Order, simply waiting for the right time to reveal itself.

"Of what?" Ento didn't know any of the dating systems prior to the Ruusan Reformation and the Great ReSynchronization.

"Mom... Why are you here?" Vaylin confronted her mother, before they could start to leave the room. Her eyes were still sharply glaring through her.

"Mom?" Raising a brow, Ento looked to Senya, "Explains a bit."

Senya looked to the boy as he spoke with some familiarity with Vaylin. Though now that she was looking at her daughter, she quickly realized how much taller she had gotten. Her height didn't correlate with the time she was taken, but she was deathly sure this was Vaylin.

However at the moment she tried to sense the boy though the force, she became puzzled by his force presence. It was hardly there, as if it was just an empty outline in the force that faded the further she moved away from it. This sensation made it hard to figure out if the boy was even real.

Side tracked by this, she decided to ask a question, "How long have you two known each other?"

Ento and Vaylin looked at one another after being asked this question.

"Five months," Vaylin, deadpan, responded to her mother as she reached out and hooked her arm with her friend's. She wasn't going to bother explaining this. "Didn't you say it was time to go...?"

Without another word, Senya nodded with a stern expression of her own, before turning and rushing out the door.

The two followed, the eerily familiar halls haunted her thoughts, but even as she slowed down, Ento kept their speed at a singular pace. He'd drag her if he had to, he wasn't going to let her fall behind!

As the three rushed down the long winding dark corridors, filled with nothing by horrors, they were making progress in their escape. It seemed very little was in their way.

Then just as they exited the facility and onto some sort of exterior docking bay, Ento and Vaylin found that it was raining... The three then came to a slow jog, before completely stopping. Lining the dock were six figures in dark armor wielding disengaged lightsabers.

Ento, Vaylin and Senya could all sense their will, their determination, and their intent.

"Stay behi--" Senya was cut off as both of the teens activated their lightsabers and entered Ataru opening stances. Her eyes widened seeing that her daughter had received what seemed to be some form of lightsaber training.

In sequence the Nathema Zealots would engite their own weapons, emitting yellow hues.

"Until we find a way back to the Scimitar, I suggest hanging around your mother..."

"Only as long as it's convenient," Vaylin was still angry with her mother, mostly due to the fact that it took her so long to come and save her. Part of her was well aware that if Ento hadn't come, she would have rejected her mother... She would have rejected the freedom she offered.

Click, Tzzz. Senya activated her own lightsaber as well, her hilt extending slightly.

Vaylin and Ento could both sense that Senya was bothered by her daughter's words, and it seemed Vaylin was okay with that. She should've acted sooner, she should have never let her father take her.

Ento's eyes shifted towards the ground ever so slightly, spotting small rocks and debris, he grinned. Just a Senya was about to charge forward, he called the items before him and before she was about to engage the Zealots... He launched the handful of debris at their enemies at lethal velocity, wiping one clear off the side of the dock, while majorly injuring another.

It was okay, he was okay with that, as Ballistakinesis wasn't all that accurate in the first place.

Though Senya had a problem with the boy outright killing one of the Zealots, she was sure that even if she didn't, she would still be blamed for their deaths. No need to hold back anymore.

The three then ran at the remaining Zealots in tangent.

As her mother deflected an attack from a Zealot, Vaylin used her and slashed her weapon across the abdomen of the zealot, killing them immediately much to Senya's surprise.

She watched as the two teens moved forward. Watching as Ento had been feigning the Ataru Stance, switching to using one hand and incredibly swift movements of a duelist.

He disarmed the first Zealot, kicking them in the chest, sending them colliding into the one behind them. That particular zealot shoved that one to the side before engaging the boy directly. Although they seemed to be far more experienced than the teens, the two worked together.

The instant the zealot was about to land a mark on Ento, Vaylin let out a strong force enhanced bellow, sending the offender flying off the side of the dock.

Then just as the other zealot who Ento had disarmed earlier went to tackle the girl, he turned around and blasted them off the other side of the dock with a handful of lightning.

One Zealot remained, Senya bashing her lightsaber into theirs. They lasted a minuscule of a second, before being kicked down and quickly impaled.

While that was happening, Ento used the force to call the masterless lightsabers to himself, clipping them onto his belt as he did.

Vaylin just narrowed her eyes on him for a few seconds before shaking her head. "Really?"

Both of them then snapped their heads to the side as they heard the approach of a white plated Zakuul Enforcement Division Shuttle.

"Come on!" Senya shouted as the doors of the Sanitarium began to open again, revealing the Emperor and several Knights in robes.

The two teens then began to run hand in hand towards Senya, as they disengaged their sabers, following her towards the shuttle which was coming in at a low altitude.

The Immortal Emperor Valkorion, greying hair and short thick beard, wearing white armor himself with gold trim, watched on. His own Knights failed to apprehend his daughter and his lover, as ordered. "Interesting..." Was the only words that left his mouth as he noticed his daughter's appearance had regressed and her conditioning undone. However what took most of his interest was the boy who had taken the lightsabers of the fallen Zealots, as powerful as he was, he couldn't sense the boy at this distance.