"Wow, I wonder what you're thinking about right now, Rex?"

It was a cheeky, sarcastic remark from General Skywalker, meant in the kindest and most supportive way, though the clone commander still felt a rush of heat rise in his cheeks and a small grin slid across his lips.

He'd been caught staring from the porch of their guest house, where he and General Skywalker stood in wait as Lindi and Axel spoke with Etolga, the Chitauri woman who seemed to run things around the village, about ten yards away across the street. Neither men could hear what was being said over the music and cheerful dancing of the villagers; Rex didn't care. He was too busy in his own head, his small grin turning into a full smile when Lindi caught his gaze and returned it with a playful smirk before continuing on with her conversation.

"Oh my kriff, you're absolutely smitten," Anakin chuckled and folded his arms across his chest. The clone commander just let out a low, bashful laugh as his eyes found a suddenly-interesting spot on the ground. There was no point in denying it; Rex wouldn't have sounded convincing enough to even fool himself. "I'm counting this as a win. This is positively, without-a-doubt my biggest accomplishment I've ever achieved."

"What? Getting me my first kiss?" Rex laughed. Anakin's eyes widened and his jaw dropped.

"Your first what? Your first what?" The jedi nearly shrieked as his arms shot forward and his hands clamped down on Rex's shoulders. "Rex, you've already made it to step two?" In an act of pure joy, the jedi pulled the clone into a full, strong embrace. The first time the general had ever hugged the commander in all their years serving at each other's side. "Rex, I've never been more proud of you in my life-"

"Interrupting something, are we?"

Rex wanted to laugh at the general's words; to think that after countless battles and sieges, what gave Anakin Skywalker the most pride was hooking up his right-hand man with a lady-friend. But his laugh was stifled when he heard her voice and looked over Anakin's shoulder to see Lindi and Axel standing before them, a beautiful shining smile gracing her lips like a ray of sunlight after months of winter clouds. At first Rex thought he was going to throw up as his stomach began to clench and unclench, but remembered the general mentioning it and saying that invisible butterflies crawl into your stomach every time you see the person care for most. If he and Lindi had any real chance of making it through this war together, he'd have to get used to the sensation in the center of his torso.

"No, nothing at all," Anakin took a step back and nonchalantly began dusting off the armor on Rex's shoulders. "Looked a bit grimy, that's it." She just rolled her eyes, her smile turning into a mischievous smirk.

"Well if you're done playing around, we think we might've found a way off this planet without going back the way we came." Lindi chuckled; the last bit of her sentence gave the General and his clone commander a bit more hope in the situation. She nodded to Axel and he pulled a rolled piece of yellowed parchment from his back pocket. The four individuals huddled around the paper, Lindi sending Rex a playful elbow when he pretended to accidentally bump into her right shoulder. The suspiciously innocent look on his face turned into a cheeky smirk and General Skywalker did his best to remain focused on the topic at hand.

The parchment before them was weathered after years of use. Drawn carefully with a thick, black ink were the basic landmarks they'd wandered through on their journey starting on the left side of the map. There was a small cave-like structure in the upper left corner where they'd entered this land, then through a stretch of green trees was the grotto where they'd first met the Eletai, followed by another clump of the forest before coming to the village at the very center of the paper. A little higher and off to the right of the tiny cluster of houses was more jungle-like floral that led to a large mountainous structure.

Based on how detailed the mountain was sketched in comparison to the rest of the map's artwork, it wasn't hard to guess that he must've held some sort of importance to the Chitauri people.

"There's a ritual being held tonight at this mountain," Lindi pointed with her index finger. "Etolga says it's filled with giant crystals and a strong, sturdy presence that's said to heal the sick and give good fortune to those deserving. There's a multitude of tunnels that run throughout the mountain, but the one I think that will take us back to Twar is what the locals like to think of as 'a portal to another realm'." She quoted, then flipped the map over to show a web-like grid of twisting and turning passageways. Though the majority of the tunnels were drawn in the same black ink, one was highlighted with a bright blue hue. "This is our ticket out of here."

"Sounds easy enough, what's the catch?" Lindi gave the General an apologetic half-smile at his question.

"It's also one of the biggest nesting-sites of the Tokep within a hundred clicks. We should be fine though as long as we stay close to the Chitauri people," She quickly added that last part when the woman noticed the glimpses of unease in Anakin and Rex's eyes. "They claim to be protected by their deity, Gala. That's what they call the strong presence in the mountain."

"They don't ask for blood-sacrifices, do they?" Rex chuckled somewhat nervously, to which Lindi responded with a laugh.

"No, no sacrifices," Despite the light-hearted assurance, none of the men were going to let their guard down if rituals were involved. "Gala is a peaceful goddess; the only thing she asks for is to be kind and considerate of others." Rex, Anakin, and Axel exchanged weary looks as she continued explaining the information she knew about the situation. "The Chitauri haven't had any casualties while within the mountain, so whatever's going on in there keeps the Tokep at bay for as long as the villagers are inside. For the most part, at least."

As suspicious as this information sounded, Molindi hadn't been wrong about much- if anything- during this crazy adventure. It would've been foolish to dismiss her words now; they knew better than that.

"Alright, so when will the Eletai start the trek there?" Rex asked.

"In a couple hours. Etolga said they'll pack up their things once the morning festivities finish up and start moving by the time the sun reaches it's highest point."

They simultaneously raised their eyes to the heavens and noted just where the sun rested in the sky- the bright burning ball of gas was about half way to noon.

"Looks like we stumbled into this place right on time," Axel stated as he rolled up the map once more and slipped it back into his back pocket for safe-keeping.

"Definitely," Anakin agreed and folded his arms over his chest with a smirk.

***

Hours had passed since the Twaran army first entered the sewer-system, marching two-by-two by the light of their torches. If any of the soldiers had second-thoughts about jumping into giant pipes of gray water, the concept of voicing those concerns had been bred out of them centuries ago. When their queen gave an order, it was to be fulfilled immediately; even the idea itself of questioning a superior's order was a death sentence.

"How much further til we reach the end of the sewage tunnels?" Ventress's voice echoed down the pipes, her words bouncing through the darkness like the sloshing rhythm of foot steps from the hundreds of men behind her. Asemdi was silent next to her, one arm aloft with a torch to guide the way and the other clenching the hilt of an ancient sacrificial sword adorned with blood-red gems and silver snakes wrapping around its base. The queen was silent at first; her determined eyes seemed to glow even brighter than the flame of her burning torch.

"Legend tells of a land that exists between Heaven and Hell," The queen spoke after a moment, never turning her gaze away from the path forward. If the putrid smell and damp air of their surroundings had any affect on the woman she certainly didn't show it. "A land that our ancestors believed to be accessible only from within the core of Twar or our sister planet, Naboo. For centuries it remained nothing but a children's-" For the first time in what felt like days since entering the under-belly of the city the queen's emotions seemed to shift from that of anger and vengeance to grief. But almost as soon as the shift occurred, it was shoved aside and replaced with absolute malice.  "A children's tale. Those narcissistic pigs on Naboo claim their planet to be Heaven, but every planet is considered a paradise when they choose to hide the cut-throat decisions that made it so."

Ventress had never been to Naboo, but from what she'd heard and seen on holovids it certainly did seem like a paradise. White sandy beaches, amazing food, pleasantly warm weather and a welcoming population of people that got along together nicely- it would've been anyone's first thought when the term "heaven" was thrown around.

"Other than the occasional conflict with the gungan population's interests, I've never heard of Naboo being a place of deceit from its visitors." It was a risk to get the queen all riled up again, but considering how badly she was handling the loss of her children it was a risk that the Sith has no choice but to take. To say Asemdi grabbed the bait would've been an understatement. She bit down on that bait like a shark and ripped it out of the nightsister's hands.

"They'd never admit it out loud, if the general public still even knows about the planet's true past," Asemdi's boots sloshed quickly underfoot. "I doubt most historians are even allowed this kind of information anymore; it would damn their angelic reputation if the right person got their hands on it." At those words, Ventress became intrigued; an almost child-like excitement filled her veins at the concept of the planet having a horrific past. 

"Eons and eons ago, both planets of Naboo and Twar had been a singular super-planet known as Tawnari. This planet contained both properties of what make Twar and Naboo so different from each other; on one hemisphere were the beautiful mountains and gorgeous beaches and on the other were the harsh deserts and dry canyons. The people that inhabited this planet, the Tawnarians, were beautiful immortal giants compared to you and I. They had long, slender arms they used to dig deep trenches in the ground and enormous ears that legend says could change the direction of the wind to terraform mountains as they pleased. 

"Though these giants were peaceful for most of their existence, one day the giants that populated the harsher hemisphere saw how much more beautiful the other was and proposed that ownership of the lands be split so each hemisphere was covered in half of beauty and bountiful life and the other ugly and barren. The giants that populated the more beautiful hemisphere refused and war broke out between the two tribes. In order to stop the blood-shed, the Great Division occurred where the planet was split in half and the giants as a species were split into two sub-species."

"So Twar is the desert-half and Naboo is the bountiful-half?" Ventress questioned.

"Yes, but that is not where the story ends," Asemdi continued and the sith raised an eyebrow. "The giants who had been open to change and willing to share land were allowed to keep their giant ears as well as were given trunks for noses in order to easily spread water across the land to keep it as bountiful as it was the day they were willing to share it. The giants who opposed the treaty to share what they had were allowed to keep their long, strong arms but were cursed with an inability to consume water in any way, instead having the water consume them any time they tried to drink or even touch the precious liquid.

"Regardless of whichever side the giants were on, however, all beings who fought along the equator were sucked into what legend calls 'the land between Heaven and Hell'. And in time when the borders along the current planets and that space between grow thin, the good giants will return to the desert hemisphere and bring forth life with the water from their trunks and blow away all the sand with the aid of their ears, while the evil giants will return to the bountiful land and suffer for the rest of eternity in a world where water, the life-blood of their home, has become their enemy." 

"And you think that the spies somehow traveled to this land in between?" Ventress wasn't sure if she really believed what Asemdi was telling her; after all, this was just a kids' story. But make-believe or not, they were still missing a jedi and three Republic soldiers. It appeared as if Asemdi was about to reply, but stopped short and came to a halt in the tunnel, causing the soldiers behind them to shuffle to a stop for fear of running into their queen. Though she couldn't see the queen's face past her mask, Ventress could see the way her eyes squinted as if grinning evilly and gazing into the distance.

All it took was a quick glance to see exactly what the queen had seen- a light.

"I believe we're about to answer that question now," Asemdi smirked and dropped her torch into the water below, extinguishing the flame with a hiss.