Disclaimer: I guess I actually do own most of this chapter. Gwyn and Jarik are mine, but anything Star Wars-y isn't.

Prologue

"Karath!"

"Yes, Lord Malak?"

"That boy's device. Our...guest has been telling me a very interesting story about it. I'd like to see if she was telling the truth."

"Of course, Lord Malak. What do you want me to do?"

"Send three of my more competent apprentices to me. There's someone I want them to kill."

It was a normal Tuesday. Gwyn was hurrying through the halls of Ashton High with her books clutched to her chest and her head down. She was running late, and she couldn't be late to class again. Her dad was her next teacher and he would point out her tardiness to the entire class. She would rather die than let that happen.

Suddenly, a deafening crack rang through the noisy corridor. Somewhere further down the hall, there was a bright flash of light.

For a moment everyone was still, unsure of what it was or what to do. Then someone screamed and the spell was broken. The hallway turned to chaos. People tried to run away from where the light had been, but the people behind them blocked the way. Teachers were coming out of the classrooms, trying to settle the students down. Mr. Taylor, shoved his way though the crowd, white as a sheet and sprinting away from where the light had been. Seeing one of her favorite teachers that terrified scared Gwyn more than the screaming. She froze, staring wide-eyed down the hall.

People buffeted against her as they tried to run away, pushing her this way and that. The screams were deafening now, and Gwyn could smell the nervous sweat of the crowd around her. The throng was barely moving, probably because only a few people at a time could enter the stairs at the end of the hall.

The hall was clearing, though. And there were fewer screams now. Gwyn wished she didn't know why, wished she could make her feet move and run toward the stairs while screaming hysterically. Her body wouldn't let her, though. Instead, she shook as she stared at the three robed figures cutting their way through her fellow students. They cut through the stragglers like a hot knife through butter, silencing everyone they passed in the hall.

They were using lightsabers. Glowing red double-bladed lightsabers. They were Sith. Sith, in Gwyn's high school.

And they were getting closer. They were less than twenty feet away, and there were barely a dozen people left in between her and them and they were getting closer.

Gwyn was going to die. If she hadn't been so terrified, she might've laughed at the irony. At least now she wouldn't be late to class.

One of the Sith pointed at her, muttering something to his companions. They nodded and the pointer walked right at her while the other two continued dealing with stragglers. He was fifteen feet away. Ten feet. She really going to die, right here in this hallway, in the middle of all the other bodies, and there was nothing she could-

"Gwyn, are you crazy?" Liz appeared out of nowhere and started pulling hard on Gwyn's arm. "Move! Move!" Finally, Gwyn's feet came unstuck from the ground and the two girls tumbled into the nearest classroom. Gwyn locked the door with unsteady hands, then started trying to drag desks over to make a barricade. She was shaking so much that it was almost impossible. Liz tried to help, but before they had finished moving the first desk a glowing red blade appeared through the door and began slicing through their last line of defense. Gwyn smelled burning wood and her mind shut down. Liz dragged her under the teacher's desk and all Gwyn could bring herself to do was stuff her fist in her mouth to keep herself from screaming. She tried not to think about how she was about to die.

Jarik had been having trouble with his swapper ever since he first got it. It didn't want to turn on, its controls didn't respond immediately, it was slow to send him anywhere and when it did the side effects were more severe than they should've been. Since he was new, though, he was having trouble getting a replacement. He had to make do with cursing at his and hoping his request for new parts went through quickly.

That strategy was going quite well until his swapper stopped working entirely half-way through a jump, stranding him on the Other Side.

No, nonononono. Please don't. Jarik slapped the device on his wrist desperately, but the display just flashed once before blinking out entirely. "Shavit!"

That was when his hearing came back, and he heard screaming. And a very ominous humming. Jarik's head snapped up, and he managed to leap back just in time to avoid being decapitated by the Sith in front of him.

"What the hell are you guys doing here?" he asked. The Sith ignored the question and took a step forward, still swinging its lightsaber. Ducking out of the way, Jarik unholstered his blaster and let off a few shots. To his amazement, the Sith only managed to block one of the bolts, and fell over with a smoking hole in its chest.

Jarik looked down at the dead Sith in disbelief. "C'mon, I know I'm good, but no one's that good. What's going—" Someone tackled him from the side, sending them both sprawling. Jarik turned his blaster on his attacker, but the man was already on his feet, firing at another Sith. This Sith was standing where Jarik had been a second ago, and had been apparently been coming up on him from behind. Jarik gulped and looked up at his savior, a middle-aged man with greying blonde hair and an archaic blaster. He wasn't a very good shot, but somehow, he had a blaster. That technology wasn't supposed to exist on the Other Side.

The Sith was too close for comfort, and getting closer, so Jarik shoved his thoughts away for the time being and rose to his feet. He started shooting, and between him and the older man the Sith hit the ground in just a few moments.

"What's wrong with them?" Jarik asked. "They shouldn't be this easy to kill."

To Jarik's surprise, the older man actually answered. "It's the Force." The man knelt next to the Sith and started rummaging through its robes, looking for something.

"Yeah, what about it?"

"There isn't any here." The man moved to the other Sith, not noticing Jarik's frown.

"What? But that doesn't make any sense." He flashed back to his training on the Other Side. "They never mentioned that. Why wouldn't they mention that?"

"Damn it!" The older man stood, ignoring Jarik. "Neither of them have it. Where'd the last one go?"

Jarik pointed at the door the last remaining Sith had just managed to cut through. "It went in there. But—"

The older man set off running down the hall and Jarik chased after him, grumbling under his breath.

Gwyn heard a piece of the door fall to the ground, and heard the Sith follow it into the room.

"Well, well, well. What have we here?" the Sith said. "The little girl seems to be gone. What a pity." His tone was mocking and Gwyn bit down harder on her fist. She tasted blood, but couldn't feel any pain.

"Or, maybe..." His voice moved around the room, toward the desk where Gwyn and Liz were hiding. "...she's tried to hide. You can't hide, little girl. Not from me."

Gwyn could see the Sith's boots as he walked behind the desk, stopping just a few inches away. She whimpered, and suddenly the desk was gone. Vaguely, Gwyn realized that the Sith had knocked the desk over and Liz was now frantically scrambling away. She couldn't move, though. The Sith ignored the other girl. He was staring at Gwyn. His eyes were yellow. For some reason, that color was terrifying.

"Hello, Gwyneth Smith," he said, reaching for her. "I've been looking for you." Something in the pit of Gwyn's stomach began trying to force its way out her throat. She screamed.

Someone screamed. A girl. Jarik cursed as he and the older man entered the classroom to see the remaining Sith reaching for a girl who was half hidden by a fallen desk. The girl's scream abruptly cut off the Sith picked her up by the throat. She thrashed and pulled at his hand, but couldn't get him off.

"Gwyn!" the older man shouted. The Sith spun toward them, dropping the girl—Gwyn, presumably—in his surprise. She landed heavily, gasping for air.

"Step away from the girl and put your hands behind your head," Jarik said, pointing his blaster at the Sith's chest as he stepped further into the room. "Your buddies are dead, and you'll be joining them unless you do exactly what I say."

The Sith bared his teeth. "The girl has offended my master. She must die." Two red blades slid out of his lightsaber. "If you leave now, I will allow you to survive."

Jarik laughed harshly. "We both know that if you could kill me, you would've tried by now. You're weak here, without the Force. And that means that you will leave her alone."

The Sith glared at Jarik, and he thought the Dark Jedi was about to surrender. Then he reached down and, before Jarik could get off a shot, roughly pulled the girl up to his chest so that she was facing Jarik. Jarik winced at the terrified expression on her face.

The girl's mouth fell open. "Dad?" she croaked.

"Don't worry, sweetie," the older man said. "We'll get you out of this." He lifted his blaster but didn't actually point it at the Sith. Jarik assumed he wasn't willing to risk hitting his daughter. "Everything's going to be fine."

Jarik snorted. "Really? How do you figure that?"

Ignoring them, the Sith raised his lightsaber in front of Gwyn. He released her with his opposite hand, keeping her trapped with the glowing blade. He reached for his lightsaber arm's wrist, drawing Jarik's attention there.

"What...how..." Jarik was lost for words as he stared at the swapper strapped to the Sith's wrist.

"No!" Gwyn's dad pushed past Jarik and charged the Sith. Jarik called for him to stop and lunged after him, but it was too late. The red blade swung and the older man fell to the ground. Gwyn screamed and the Sith laughed and Jarik reached them just as the Sith hit a button on the swapper. The three of them vanished, leaving Liz shivering alone in a corner of the room.

A/N: There will be actual KotOR characters in the next chapter. I promise. *hides from readers who expected someone they recognized* The next chapter is mostly written, it just needs another page or so of writing and a whole bunch of editing.

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Edit: I overhauled the chapter so that it's much better. I'll be working my way through the next two chapters before I post anything new (but I finally finished the rough draft of Chapter 4 :)