The Search for Aaron

A/N [ I'll keep this short as I can.

I am sorry if I am seemingly rushing the story, I am not trying to do so but I don't want to spend too much time in a certain POV.

Speaking of, I know how I feel about the POV changes, but it would be nice to know if it is something that you all would like to see more or less of. Or maybe you would like 1st person views of the other characters, it's honestly all up to the consensus of you guys. If you want something enough then I can see about trying to do it.

That's all I can think of, I hope you guys are enjoying this because, despite how hard it is to write this, it is pretty fun to write.]

It's dark.

I'm cold.

I'm tired of living.

When is this going to end?

Why me?

These were all questions that invaded my mind as I was trapped in a loop of darkness, loneliness, and pain. Every time 13 came back to cut me open, immense amounts of pain would be inflicted on me, and every time he would leave again as if he had done nothing. Leaving me in the dark, to my thoughts, and it is here that I finally started to question my life. What have I been doing up until this point? After Caroline died, all I searched for was a way to avenge her. After I did that, I just gave up on life and shot myself.

And once I woke up here, I was only guided by my sense of freedom and saving the kids around me. I'm no hero, I realized that a long time ago, but I'm not someone who would just abandon the few I can save. Besides, look at how well that went? After getting attached I end up in danger and separated from them by someone with a fucking lightsaber. That is something they cannot take, and neither can I. I guess this is just what I get for letting myself believe I had another chance to live happily.

...m

'What was that?' There was a distant noise, and I don't know how loud it was but I could hear it from here, and I haven't heard any outside noise since I got locked in here.

..oom

'There it is again, what the hell is happening out there?' Hearing the noise again, and louder, made me realize finally what it probably was. 'Are those explo-'

BOOM!!

The darkness that forever surrounded me was abruptly cut off by an invading heat-covered light. Before I could take in the sheer emptiness of the room, or even what was happening, I heard a voice call out my name.

"Aaron?!"

...There was no way. I'm sure I had seen her eyes before I fell unconscious, and I'm certain they couldn't have gotten past all of those guards, 13, and made it to me without dying at least once.

But here they were.

Here she was.

"Ca..llis..ta?"

*3rd Person POV, a couple of weeks ago*

"So what now?" Dahlia was conflicted. She knew a rescue mission was suicide, and that even just escaping was already an impossibly hard mission itself.

"Isn't it obvious? We're going to save him!" AJ's eyes shone with a strong light of conviction, showing not even a slight doubt about his course of action. If there was one thing the Zabraks are famous for other than their strength, it would be their loyalty to those they deem friends or more.

"But how are we going to do that? You said it yourself, it's idiotic to do this alone." Callista was not happy about this outcome. They were all supposed to have been out of here, on a ship to anywhere but here, ready for a life of anything they wished, but once those guards showed up reality came crashing on them. Their escape plan had been stupidly optimistic, and even without the guards interrupting it most likely would've failed before barely beginning. None of them were trained, the most they could do was use their better than average bodies and try their best, but for how long would that work?

"Don't worry Cal, we'll get Aaron back, because I have a plan." AJ sat down close to the middle of the circle, facing out to the bars, and motioned for the girls to sit in front of him. Once he saw the coast was clear, he put his fist out and opened his hand palm upwards for a brief second, right before closing it again and hiding it as if it was the most precious thing in the world. Of course, the thing he had shown them was

"Keys!" A hushed gasp came from Dahlia and Callista combined, because even though they were extremely surprised they have learned to not be any louder lest they attract unwanted attention. "How did you manage to find these and not get caught?"

"Well it was easy, did you think I would be sitting and gawking at Aaron ripping those guards to shreds like you two? If you had stopped staring at him for a second or two, you could've realized sooner that a guard had been thrown into our cell by him, dead and ready to loot. So obviously I took his keys, he's dead, and are they really going to keep track of every individual guard's keys when they could be left anywhere?" With a hint of blush reaching Dahlia's and Callista's cheeks for missing out on such a perfect opportunity at escape just to stare at Aaron killing guards, they quickly recovered as they tried their hardest to figure out how best to use this opportunity.

"Well, you said you have a plan, and since three heads are better than one I believe filling us in should be the best bet to making this succeed, dontcha' think?" Dahlia seemed hyped now that there was an actual chance at saving one of her only friends, and she wasn't going to let a single second more pass without starting the plans.

"Okay, here's the plan. I propose a full-scale breakout, not just us."

"Hold on, why would we do that? Wouldn't we get caught way too easily?" Callista was worried the plan wouldn't work because of the large number of people this required. In the previous plan, it would just be the four of them, and as crazy as it was, it was the best way to get out of there unnoticed.

"I believe AJ has a point Cal, because what we're trying to do is much more than just escape."

"Exactly, we want to rescue Aaron, and then escape. Who knows where he's being kept, and in the search for him it would not only take much longer than we have, it would also be much easier to realize we escaped by then." AJ's points were stacking well, so now there were fewer flaws in his plan to both save Aaron and escape, but that didn't mean it had no clear weaknesses.

"Then let's say we get out, and can manage to convince the prisoners to try and escape, what then? How do we find Aaron in a colony this size in time to escape?"

"Who said we have to be the ones to find Aaron?" This simple sentence from AJ spoke volumes of how linear their plans had been up until that point. They had assumed it would be so much harder with a bigger group because it would be so much easier to catch and shut down, but what they didn't take into consideration was that the sheer number of in-shape slaves would have a much easier time finding ways to escape than just four individuals, and now that they had to search the compound for one of them, having everyone set each other free would guarantee someone should find Aaron and free him, regardless of where they are concerning each other.

"But how do we know the other slaves would even take part in our coup if they are almost all scared of being killed?" Dahlia was not much of a pessimist in her normal state, but in a situation like this, she couldn't help but be influenced by that part of her.

"That part is simple dear Dahlia, and the answer is anger."

"Anger?"

"Yes, anger. If we rile up the more hotheaded ones, then they'll spread it around like a plague to even the calmest slaves. It shouldn't take long before it has reached enough people to work."

"But what happens if it takes too long?" Callista looked greatly worried now, being more and more pessimistic about their chances at saving Aaron. "What if, by the time we reach him, he's already too far gone -"

"Cal-"

"Or what if he's not even still here anymore, and we'll never see him again-"

"Callista-"

"Worst of all, what if we find him, and he was just killed, and this whole thing was for noth-"

"CALLISTA!" With the quietest yell anyone has ever heard, Dahlia and AJ finally snapped Callista out of her spiral of uncertainty and bad ideas while keeping the guards none-the-wiser.

"We can't let ourselves think like that, it'll affect our chances by being distracted." Dahlia was now holding Callista's shoulder as she silently shook, trying to calm down to think clearly again.

"You're right, I'm sorry. I don't know what came over me." AJ and Dahlia looked at each other for a very brief second, concerned but understanding of her little outburst.

"It's okay Cal, just stay calm and believe. We can do this - we have to do this. For Aaron."

" "For Aaron." "

With everyone caught up on the plan, and ready to face whatever might come at them, they enacted the first step, to spread dissent and the will to escape among the slaves. The only problem that happened during this step was getting the message around quietly, but through some natural leadership charisma from the trio, and the occasional subtle use of Dahlia's pheromones, in a few weeks there were enough of the slaves that were either directly or indirectly affected by their plan that it could finally move to step two, the day of the escape.

"So, today is the day?"

"Yeah, who do you think is going to be the one to start it?"

"Who cares? As long as we get the chance to get back at those bastards and get out of here, I would be willing to follow a baby with even half a plan."

All of the slaves would murmur among themselves about the plan being enacted, but none of them knew how it would work. Most of them are just ready to act whenever it starts.

"So AJ, how do you think this will go?" Callista was feeling a little better about the plan now that everything was in place, but there was forever-lasting anxiety about the potential failure that could happen. AJ, on the other hand, was not as anxious as either Callista or Dahlia. At least, he didn't give off a feeling of anxiety.

"I don't think it'll go any certain way, I just believe we can start it and that it will reach some sort of conclusion, whether we achieve our goal or not is only based on how well everyone else can do their job." AJ was mostly just ignoring any and all thoughts of it potentially failing, he found that such thoughts could cause a plan to readily fail if not careful.

"Whatever you say. But I'm ready to start, even if it fails I would have it no other way than to at least attempt it. Besides, if this all fails and we don't escape we'll most likely be captured and killed for starting such a large uprising." Dahlia, despite sounding pessimistic about failing, was oddly optimistic about starting the mission, even if it meant death.

"Then let's start. Remember, our goal isn't solely one or the other, we need to free enough people before letting them do it themselves, then we search everywhere together, as a group. We'll have enough people going around to at least assure the widespread freeing of other slaves to find Aaron, if we don't find him first that is." With the plan set and ready, it was finally time to start.

With deep concentration and effort, Dahlia managed to befuddle the guards on duty with her pheromones, just enough to make them not notice AJ unlocking the cell with the key, and as soon as he and Callista were out they incapacitated the guards, taking their keys as well, and the trio then started unlocking all of the cells in their block. As soon as they finished that, they gave the most skilled in weapons the guard's spearguns and gathered everyone towards the door.

Before leaving, Callista, AJ, and Dahlia stood in front of the door to give a small speech of sorts. AJ stepped forward.

"Before we leave this door, I want everyone to listen to me for a second." With the silence that followed, AJ took it as his sign to continue. "Beyond this door are countless cells with numerous other slaves, some of which are our friends, and in some cases are our family. The people responsible for our pain have gone unpunished for long enough, the time to fight is now. Show no mercy, and free any slave you can. The more of us out there fighting, the harder it will be for them to win. Now, who's with me?!" Raising his fist into the air, AJ called upon the morals of those in front of him, and they all responded gloriously.

A muffled shout came out of the block, and soon thereafter a flood of slaves stormed into cellblock after cellblock. Those with the spearguns were at the forefront, quickly taking out any guard they could and handing off their weapons to quicken their pace. Each guard taken down allowed another set of keys to fall into their hands as well, which allowed even more slaves to be let out faster than before.

By the time the compound was alerted to what was happening, it was too late. The slaves had taken enough weapons to freely take on small groups of guards, and there were just so many slaves that even without weapons they would have won. Soon enough the wave of slaves had spread so wide that the armory had been found, and from there everything slowly went more and more into the slave's favor.

At the forefront of most of these battles was the trio, each taking care of plenty of guards just by themselves in search of Aaron. As each minute passed without finding him, they would slowly get a little more worried. It got to the point where the trio went into one of the most empty areas of the compound, and they split up, despite the plan being to stay together. They had set a meeting time and place for every hour or so, just in case one of them found Aaron.

With each of them, they carried a speargun and a couple of explosives, which were for the sturdy doors they might find.

Callista went towards the deepest part of the empty area, busting down as many doors as she could and as fast as she could. Each second spent now felt like hours, fear that Aaron was no longer able to be saved was growing for every door not leading to him. With a beating heart, Callista finally reached an area where she felt something was off, but she couldn't put her finger on it. Now, each door took either a lot of effort to break down or could only be broken down by the explosives she was given.

After ten more minutes of searching, she had only three charges left, and too many tough doors to be able to search them all. A sort of desperate feeling was overriding Callista's reasoning, and so she started to yell for Aaron, in hopes that he might respond for her to find him. Though this only lasted a short time, because she soon realized the futility of such actions, and instead tried a different approach.

With her last three explosives, she decided to sit and concentrate for a short period. Throughout Callista's life, she has always had a sort of ability to feel certain things. She could never control it, but she could always feel something if she concentrated hard enough. So she chose to trust in this, and stayed there, still and focusing.

It took three minutes, but she finally felt something. It was small, faint, and she couldn't pinpoint its exact location, but she got it down to 7 more doors. Choosing the 2 doors she could shoot down, neither had Aaron in them, but both held dismembered piles of rotting corpses, reaching several meters in height.

Ignoring them with surprising amounts of restraint, Callista marched forward to the remaining 5 doors. Choosing one at random, Callista set the charge and blew it up. Quickly searching inside and being unable to find him, she quickly moved on to the next door, slowly losing hope to ever finding Aaron. Blowing up the second door, she found a collection of terminals, some damaged from the explosion, but no Aaron.

Barely keeping it together, Callista set the last charge. Taking a deep yet shaky breath, she set it off and went running inside, yelling his name. She felt there was no point, she couldn't even see anything in here. It was all dark, and the parts she could see had nothing, like the first door she blew inward. As she turned around, she started to step toward the door before she heard it. The thing she has been waiting for this whole time. The single voice that, regardless of how hoarse it was, she would never forget.

"Ca..llis..ta?"