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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Ankh-Morpork Guard" data-source="post: 1901551" data-attributes="member: 10079">Chapter 89: Long Nights“What is wrong with you?” Voort growled, pointing accusingly at Akan as Landau climbed out of the airspeeder with a worried look on his face, “Why did you let them take her?!”    “I didn’t let anyone take either of them!” Akan snapped back, not backing down at this point. The argument had only lasted a couple of minutes, but tempers had already risen dangerously high. Neither of them seemed to care about what was ‘right’ or ‘good’ to do, simply letting anger out in a way that both of them knew was not a good idea.    Voort took a strong step forward, closing the gap between the two of them even more, “You shouldn’t have stopped! Anyone could tell that was a trap!”    “Well, I’m sorry your great mind wasn’t with us,” commented Akan, almost offhand and not really even speaking to Voort at this point.    Landau was trying to get close enough to pull the two of tem apart, knowing in a second where it was going. He was, however, too late. Akan’s sarcastic comment was enough to get a curse out of Voort, followed by a strong punch. It wasn’t any trouble for Akan to catch Voort’s fist, grabbing the man’s wrist and gripping tightly, allowing the threat of claws digging in to be easily seen. Neither of them moved, and Akan said quietly, “I did what I could to protect both of them.”    “Its not your job to protect!” Voort growled, wrenching his hand out from Akan’s grip and swinging at the Alraxian again. Though neither of them were trained in the intricacies of hand-to-hand combat, it was obvious that Voort’s rudimentary training was the straightforward Imperial approach of ‘hit hard’. This was no trouble for Akan’s quick moving and still very strong Alraxian body to dodge, though this time he decided that Voort needed some sense knocked into him. Literally.    The sense came in the form of Akan’s leg, which he swept low to take Voort’s feet out from under him and drop the man to the ground. He may not have been trained for this kind of fighting, but Voort was no fool. He jumped over Akan’s leg, and upon landing(albeit roughly) swung another hard punch at the Alraxian’s face. Having not yet gotten to the point of actually wanting to injure Voort, Akan was not reacting as well as he could have been. The consequence of this was Voort’s fist finding his jaw, and sending the Alraxian to the ground on his backside. Alright. That was it. With a low and dangerous growl, Akan jumped to his feet and dove at that damn Imperial scum.    He did not, however, reach Voort. A blaster shot rang out suddenly, and the sand exploded in front of Akan, stopping him in his tracks. Both of them looked to the source, seeing Landau looking extremely annoyed. In an angry voice that was very unlike anything Akan had ever heard from Landau, the man snapped at the two of them, “Cut it out! You’re acting like a pair of children!”    Neither of them pointed out that at least one of them was a child. Landau knew this and nitpicking things like that was probably not a good idea when the man was aiming a blaster at both of them.    “Akan, you still have a job to do,” Landau continued, sounding more like an Imperial officer than ever before, “Get yourself together and go finish your task. You will simply have to bring Jen and Light back with you.”    Another technicality was not point out. This time, it was the fact that there was a very large chance that Jen and Light would not be at that facility. But again, this didn’t seem like a good idea.    Landau continued without missing a beat, his looking turning to a glare as he watched the young Alraxian, “Do you understand?”    A question. Answer it. Akan didn’t nod, but instead said in a voice he’d not used in a long time, “Yes, sir.”    Without another word, he ran off into the desert. No matter how stupid it seemed, there wasn’t much of another choice. He wasn’t going to get a lift on that airspeeder after that, and arguing was no longer an option. Hopefully it wouldn’t take too long.    Landau then holstered his blaster and stepped over to Voort. His voice was only slightly calmer, “This is why relationships are discouraged among the military.”    Those words seemed to have a profound effect on Voort, and he found himself finally calming. He nodded, and looked off towards Akan who was already a good distance away, “He’s always provoking me.”    “Yes,” Landau just nodded as he started back to the airspeeder, “And he’s also young. You should know well enough by now that you should set an example for the younger troops and be above such actions.”    Again, Voort nodded, “I know. Too much just seems to be happening.”    “That’s not a good excuse,” Landau said flatly. He then stopped his walk and turned to stare straight into Voort’s grey eyes, “You think you’re the only one that cares about Jen? You think you’re the only one she cares about? We all care about her. In fact, we all care about you. Even Akan does, he’s just in a strange position to accept either of us as allies. Don’t you dare ever think that you’re the only one that cares about her. Look at her and Akan.”    Landau paused to let Voort think about it. In a way, this was not exactly a smart thing, as Voort could easily get the wrong idea of what his friend was saying. But Voort did stop to think about it, forcing his jealousy aside to think as rationally as was possible. It was only a few moments before Landau spoke up again, “They are very close. But not how you think they are. Don’t let that destroy your judgement, and don’t even think of acting like you just did again.”    As the two of them climbed back into the airspeeder, Voort found his mind was working things out without notifying him. He hadn’t wanted to get so angry with Akan, but something about how the kid acted just infuriated Voort sometimes. Akan was trying to provoke him, whether conscious or not. That boy still held some stupid resentment, and now Voort was letting it cloud his judgement, too. That was the moment that Voort joined the ranks of the many who had sworn to never return to this horrible planet. The desolation and emptiness seemed to pick at your every being whether you liked it or not.* * * *    It took Akan about half an hour to find the facility. Obviously, they’d been much closer than he’d originally expected. From what he could see, it was mostly under the sand. One large entrance arched up out of the ground like an oddly shaped dune, and that was where Akan started making his way towards. As he approached, it became obvious that the other dunes, in fact, likely all the sand, was just a thin layer in this place. The facility below ground probably spanned a large distance, and some of the dunes were too rounded to be natural. Even the ground felt harder, and Akan knew by now the difference between walking on durasteel and the sandy ground.    Entering the dimly lit entrance, Akan found it worrying that it was in fact, wide open. No hatch or door. Just an opening. That was a dangerous lack of security. Either he was expected(which wouldn’t be surprising) or they simply didn’t have to worry about people wandering in(which was also very likely). Probably both. Either way, it didn’t make him feel any better. After a short walk down some steep stairs, Akan found himself at a small hallway that extended for a long direction both to his left and right. When he reached out with the Force to try to find the ‘right’ way, he was met with a heavy pressure like a smack in the skull. Retreating back into his mind, Akan wondered if that was from the link or something else. Strange that he couldn’t tell at this point. Either way, if he was hidden before, something knew that he was here now. Damn.    Before deciding which direction to go, Akan heard a noise from the left corridor. Risking only a short glance before ducking back, he caught sight of a dirty robed humanoid figure. The robes covered most all of the figure except for the feet, which were in sandals. Hmm...only one person. It was just too perfect. So perfect that Akan worried for those long moments while the footsteps grew closer and closer. When they reached close enough, Akan spun around the corner, fist swinging hard. He connected with a nose, and got a loud ‘oof!’ noise out of the figure before it dropped to the floor with a heavy thud. The sound echoed for a second longer than Akan was comfortable with, and he quickly dragged the body up to the stairwell and disrobed it. To his surprise, he found that the figure was perfectly human looking except for the fact that it had four arms. Two of the arms didn’t look right, either. The color and shape were a bit...wrong. Somehow, that did not bode well.    No time for this, though. That was one thing to remember, though. He hid the body in a dark corner as best as was possible and then wrapped the horrible smelling robe around him. Pulling the hood up, Akan truly hoped that no one would pay any attention to his boots. Or, hopefully, sandals weren’t standard issue and this particular...thing, was an oddity. Doubtful, though. Happy with the simple disguise, Akan then slipped out into that main corridor. By process of elimination, Akan went the direction that the thing had not come from. How this process of elimination worked was anyone’s guess, but at least he’d made a decision. As he walked through a series of corridors, remembering the path perfectly so he wouldn’t get lost on the way out, Akan noticed that he was definitely following something.    A feeling. A...no, the link. That had to be it. Tracing it through the corridors as it got just slightly stronger with his approach. He did not know that this was also because Light was awakening from unconsciousness, but that didn’t matter. Rounding one more corner, Akan got a surprise. Right there, just a few paces away and getting ready to walk past him, were the two Darks. And even better, they were dragging Jen and Light along with them. Akan did have time to note that his Dark looked strangely happy, while Shadow’s had an extremely angered look on her face. The two(or rather, four) of them plowed past Akan without a word. Ah! He’d almost forgotten about the robe he was wearing. So it was working.    Then something in his mind clicked. Merge. Back to one. How again? Best when unconscious...simply step in. Like morphing. The bodies should accept each other as they’re from the same source. It isn’t difficult as long as the minds accepted each other as one. This only became a problem if too many decisions were made to make each mind independent. Light’s explanation passed through Akan’s mind in that quick second, and he reacted without realizing what he’d done.    He spun around as the Dark’s moved past him, and planted an extremely heavy blow to the back of his Dark’s head. A sound of pain was heard before he dropped Light and collapsed to the floor. Akan did his best to ignore the phantom pain on his own skull, and also tried to ignore the surprised Dark. She looked over her shoulder with a shocked expression in time to see it was already too late. No matter how strange and awkward it seemed, Akan fell into himself. A myriad of thoughts, feelings, and emotions ran through his body in that second, and for a short while he didn’t even realize where he was. Two different sets of memories collided with each other, with details filling themselves in. The minds did not fight one another, and in that short time it took for thing to mesh together, Akan managed a grin. No, a smile. He was whole again, literally.    Dark did nothing as he stood up and looked straight at her. The robe he’d warn had been discarded, and standing before her was the true Akan in his morphsuit. He managed a smile, and said simply, “You still like me now, don’t you?”    That got a reaction from Dark. She growled, dropped a very surprised Jen, and charged him. Akan easily dodged the two quick strikes. The third, though, caught him in the chest and knocked the wind out of him. Stumbling back, Akan instinctively reached for the lightsaber at his belt. Instead, he found nothing. Why had he left that behind?! So instead, he drew his blaster and fired off a shot at Dark. She smacked his hand hard, knocking the weapon off against the wall and then followed up with a strong kick to his face. As his jaw made a disturbingly loud crack, Akan found that he was soon staring straight up at the ceiling. He had expected to be reacting to a pounce from Dark. In fact, Dark had been expecting the same thing.    But something else happened. A strong pressure grew. All four of them knew what it was, and Jen was just getting to her feet only to fall back to her knees. It hurt so much! Almost like someone was squeezing their brains from the inside out...if that made any sense. It lasted long enough that all of them knew a presence had arrived. When the feeling faded, all of them were just feeling too weak to attempt any kind of retaliation against the fifth person to enter the corridor. The black robed figure seemed to watch them all silently for a long while, before speaking in that horrible non-voice.    “You have failed in a task as simple as escorting two captives, animal. Perhaps you are not even worthy of a continued line. I fear they would all be as weak as you.”    Dark managed a weak, but still angered, growl. Light, hearing this mention of breeding for the first time, seemed to react with a strange panic that all of them could see easily. None of them said anything, though. Not that they could have if they wanted to. Jen felt that the eyes within the robe(if there were any) had landed on her as the voice went on.    “It is time to test and see if you truly are what I believe you to be.”    A few moments later, a large group of those strange humanoids were all around, picking them up and holding them firmly to avoid any struggle. As they were dragged away to a distant room, they all heard the voice just as clearly as before.    “Now go and face your greatest fears. Perhaps afterwards, we will discuss your fates.”</blockquote>

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