The Varactyl Squadron Commander (A Star Wars: The Clone Wars Fan-Fiction)

Chapter Thirty-Eight

"D-doo doo, da da doo doo, da dum doo doo, da da doo doo-" JC muttered musically under her breathas she, Risk, Champ, and General Skywalker snuck their way through the corridors of the palace. Thanks to the ceremony taking place on the opposite side of the city, it left the building almost completely empty and unguarded. With Rex, Molindi, and Axel putting on a show for the Twaran people, the three men and female droid wouldn't be under quite a time crunch.

"Da dah dum... da dah dum... da dah dum... dun-um, wah!"

"Spy music? Is that really necessary right now?" Champ whispered gruffly as the three men walked side by side and JC took the lead, the droid's head bopping ever so slightly with the beat of the song. JC nearly fell over her own feet at the sudden sound of his voice. Her shoulders fell sheepishly.

"S-sorry, just thought it fit the moment..."

"I think it did," the General smirked. JC's engine whirred to life and the three men could've sworn they'd heard a robotic giggle she couldn't help but emit. 

Not a lot of time had passed since they parted ways with the rest of their team; only ten minutes prior, the general was dropping off the clones who would locate and liberate the five Twaran traitors scheduled for a merciless execution. Now he, two troopers, and Commander Rino's droid were scouring the lower levels of the palace for the droid information they'd been sent to intercept.

With perplexed eyes, Anakin took in the interior of the castle that appeared to be so rocky and sandy on the outside, but was a total opposite of the inside. Instead of sandstone and weathered marble that made up the majority of the city, the inside seemed to be completely fashioned by plants and growth. Vibrant greens and earthy browns covered whatever walls might've been beneath the cascading waterfalls of vines and leaves; it nearly floored the Jedi master. 

Where was it all coming from? Twar hadn't seen an ounce of rain within four-hundred years, how the hell were the plants within the palace walls developing so well? And with no sunlight, how could they process enough energy to live if not through photosynthesis? With the planet's environment being so barren and harsh, such growth shouldn't have been botanically possible.

Then he remembered witches were involved, and he stopped wondering why these plants prospered. A single visit to Dathomir was enough for Anakin to realize that witches were capable of crazy things; keeping their plants watered was probably a walk in the park for them.

As they continued their search, checking every empty room they could for any sign of the holo-disk, Anakin felt something strange in his gut. Something abnormal in the very pit of his stomach, tugging at his muscles in a way that wasn't his own. With each step, he felt the sensation grow up his back, through his spine and climb to his neck, stopping at the very back of his skull. As much as he wanted to believe it was the Force guiding him, the dark aura that blossomed through the walls told him otherwise.

"Uh...do you know where you're going?" Champ asked from behind JC. It was a good question, considering they hadn't brought a map to help guide themselves.

"N-nope," was her simple reply. "The walls are always g-growing and changing. It's virtually impossible to know which turn to take." Her response didn't stir any confidence in this mission, but they were so far into the palace by this point that there was no turning back. It seemed a little too convenient when the group of four was introduced to a fork in the road. The one hallway they'd been taking had converged into two, one leading left and one leading right. They stopped in their tracks hopelessly.

"This is useless, we're never going to find it at this pace," Champ stated bitterly and folded his arms. "How the hell are we going to-"

"It's this way."