Please allow me to remind you that this author does not own any part of the Star Wars universe.

Thank you, Obi-Wan Kenobi. You were my only hope.

Many thanks also to my beta reader, Metruis!

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When Anakin ran from the room, blaster bolts were streaking the hallways once again, which could only mean Obi-Wan had arrived and was trying to save him. Clones and droids alike were falling around him. He shouted until he was hoarse, warning all the clones to get out, and he quickly dissected any droids he encountered, but he did not stop running. Further up here, the ground was still heaving wildly, but the floor remained intact, and the temperature wasn't as high, although Anakin could feel it rising. He realized belatedly that this main tunnel was a passage through which molten lava had flowed a long, long time ago – and was about to flow through again.

Suddenly, he felt Obi-Wan near. He locked onto his Master's Force signature and quickly located him, fighting off seven super battle droids. Anakin came behind them and slashed them to pieces, then shouted to Obi-Wan, "Come on, Master! We have to get out! Now!"

Obi-Wan hesitated for one nerve-wracking moment. Even as he returned dozens of blaster bolts to their owners, he shot Anakin a look of curiosity and displeasure. Nevertheless, he followed his old student without a word. They rushed through the tunnel, calling to the few clones still living to get out, deflecting blaster bolts as they ran.

When they finally burst out of the rock mound, it seemed that the entire basin in which it lay was heaving up and down, waves of energy rippling outward from it, cracking the ground around it. Obi-Wan paused, the questioning look returning to his eyes, but Anakin grabbed his arm and dragged him along, past the bodies of the murdered cripples.

"Keep running!" he shouted. "Get as far as you can!"

The water in the pools was boiling. Anakin could feel the skin on his feet and legs scalding and blistering, and Obi-Wan's cries of pain testified to similar trouble. The clones behind them were crying out as well. Anakin looked back to check their progress. A few were catching up, but some of them were still back by the rock mound's entrance. They were slowing down, stopping, screaming in pain; the soles of their boots were melting and sticking to the ground. Many of them fell as Anakin watched. He forced himself to turn around and not look back again.

They ran for all they were worth. Though it couldn't have been more than fifteen minutes, it seemed to Anakin that hours passed before the village appeared over the edge of the last depression. He staggered in among the dilapidated, haphazard huts, exhausted and panting. Obi-Wan and the few clones who had been able to keep up followed close behind.

But they weren't safe yet.

"Come on, Artoo!" Anakin shouted. "Get out! Use your jets! You have to get out of here! Now!"

The little droid appeared from inside his shack and jetted off over the heaving ground. They kept on running; in five more minutes, they had cleared the village. By this point, even the Jedi were ready to drop, but they kept running anyway; they knew their lives depended on it.

The vapor that had clouded the world's atmosphere was abruptly gone, whirled away by the suddenly strong winds that scoured the plains. The little pools were dry and empty; the water had boiled away, and no more was flowing in. Instead, the heated water was all being released through the break in the planet's surface, directly under the rock mound.

Anakin and Obi-Wan were several meters past the village when they heard a deep, throbbing rumble, followed by a terrific crack. They all turned back to see the rock mound split in half as a plume of orange lava fountained straight up into the sky. They stopped and stared; Anakin knew they were still too close, but he was riveted to the spot, compelled to watch the disaster unfold.

The lava geyser stopped and receded back into the ground; then the rumbling began again, growing louder like a drumroll. Just when Anakin thought it couldn't get any louder, a huge thundering boom nearly burst his eardrums and flung them all to the ground. The two halves of the mountain were hurled outward into the air, only to crash to the ground a short distance away. The basin in which the rock hill had rested exploded into the sky, and lava and ash rained down, some of it landing mere meters away from Obi-Wan, Anakin, Artoo, and the remains of their army.

The death-cries of many clones assaulted the Jedi in the Force. Anakin nearly doubled over in anguish and pain over the loss of life. Obi-Wan stood at his side in grieving silence.

Ash and lava rained down from the sky around them, tossed on the wind. Every minute, more burning ashes floated around them, burning tiny holes in the Jedi's cloaks and pitting the armor of the clones with little dents of melted plastoid.

Obi-Wan finally straightened and turned, panting.

"It's time to go."

They all took to their heels again in an attempt to stay out of reach of the flying lava, running far out into the plains to escape the fiery destruction.

Once they achieved a safer distance, they stopped to catch their breath and rest. Anakin stood in glum, sullen silence; Obi-Wan scanned the rocky plains for any stray clones.

There were none on any horizon. Obi-Wan then counted those who had survived to escape with the Jedi.

It didn't take him very long.

Anakin was almost frightened by the dull, grayish look on his Master's face as he turned to him.

"Five," Obi-Wan announced, in a stunned flat voice that matched his countenance. "We have only five clones left. All the rest must have been killed."

It took a moment for Anakin to absorb the information. His ears rang with the words, their echoes gathering into a long, slow, deafening roll of thunder. He turned and raised his head to stare in disbelief.

"Five?" he roared angrily. "Only five survived!! Even a defeat should leave us with more than that!"

Tremors from the eruption across the plain rippled through the ground towards them.

Obi-Wan looked at him dubiously. "I suppose it was a victory, after all," he said thoughtfully.

This only further infuriated Anakin. "Yes!" he spat. "It was a victory. The most pathetic, costly, devastating victory in the history of the Republic, but it was a victory." His tone was vicious. "You think any of the Separatists survived that? You bet your lightsaber not!"

Obi-Wan was looking alarmed, and Anakin knew he was out of control, but he didn't care, any more than he noticed that the ground was shaking vigorously.

"There's only five of us left. All but five of the clones we brought here to this easy to win battle are dead. But we accomplished our mission!" he shouted bitterly. "The Separatist presence is gone! They're all destroyed or dead. Every single one of them!"

The words were familiar; they hit him like a rancor's fist to his gut. They were the very words he'd used when confessing his murder of the Tusken Raiders to Padmé. Anakin broke down. His chest convulsing, he sobbed loudly, not caring who heard. It was just too much, too much for him to handle. The loss of nearly all of the troops, the remembrances of his troubled past, his deed in the rock mound, and his visions of his awful future all came rushing together, sweeping his soul away in a dangerous current of darkness.

"Anakin," asked Obi-Wan, oblivious to the cause of his friend's pain, completely flabbergasted by this outburst, "What is it?"

"What do you think it is?!" screamed Anakin.

The ground suddenly pitched them all into the air. Anakin landed hard on his stomach in the empty rock pools. His knees and elbows were torn, and the wind was temporarily knocked out of him. He was too weak to resist when the rim of one of the pools came up to meet his forehead. Unfortunately, he struck the same spot he'd bashed on the steering wheel of his starfighter. Pain exploded through the already-bruised bone as his skin split again, dripping blood onto the rock. Anakin fought to maintain consciousness. He hadn't been hit terribly hard, but it hurt far worse than a more fatal blow could have. He sat up, reeling from the pain, then made a feeble attempt to stand; it failed, and he plopped back down on the hard ground.

"I hate this planet!" he shrieked.

The ground bucked again; they were too close still to the volcano, but Anakin couldn't get up and run away, not yet. The pain, though it was gradually lessening, still blinded him and weakened his limbs and his resolve. Through his physical and mental suffering, he dimly felt Obi-Wan come to his side and kneel beside him.

"Anakin, calm down," began Obi-Wan.

Anakin just couldn't take "calm down." The word that exploded from his lips would have made a spice pirate blush and cover his ears. His face burned red when he realized what he had just uttered.

To his Jedi Master and best friend, Obi-Wan Kenobi.

Obi-Wan went silent, obviously unsure how to handle Anakin.

The ground again heaved violently, and Obi-Wan pulled Anakin close to him, firmly gripping his shoulders to keep him from further injury. When the ground stilled again, Obi-Wan broke the awkward silence.

"You are very upset and in great pain, so I am just going to pretend I never heard that," he said, his voice stiff. "Now, hold still. This is going to hurt."

Anakin felt something cold and stinging touch his head, and he jerked involuntarily, but gritted his teeth and stiffened his muscled to keep from crying out again or impeding Obi-Wan's work. Then the cool soothing of a bacta patch blanketed the pain, and he relaxed a little.

"Ow," he moaned, and opened his eyes. Obi-Wan's grave but concerned face looked down at him, slightly distorted by pools of unshed tears. "I-I'm sorry… I –" he stammered, blushing red again.

Obi-Wan's face hardened a bit, but he said, "No. I told you, Anakin, it never happened. Now, here. Pain relievers – swallow them."

He gave Anakin two pills, which Anakin choked down. In a few moments, his head had cleared, and he stood up and walked about. The five clones were standing again as well, having been protected by their plastoid armor, and Artoo, who now sported a large scratch in his paint and a dent or two, was attempting to roll out of the empty pool he was stuck in. It would have been comical under other circumstances.

Obi-Wan came up beside him. "Will you be all right?"

Anakin nodded, which caused the pain in his head to spike for a moment. "Yes," he said to cover his discomfort.

"Then we'd better hurry and get you off this planet before you blow it entirely apart."

Anakin stared at his former teacher. "Before I blow it apart?"

Obi-Wan returned his stare. "Do you mean that you really haven't noticed?"

"Noticed what?" asked Anakin, more than a little indignantly.

"Every time there's a groundshake, it directly follows one of your outbursts of anger. I felt it in the Force not long before the volcano erupted. This planet responds to your anger in the Force, Anakin. I can only imagine that every one of the tremors we have been experiencing since we came here has been in some way connected to your negative emotions. Yes, the planet has a volcanic interior to begin with, but your anger and frustration seem to trigger the volcanic activity."

Anakin's jaw dropped as Obi-Wan accused him of being responsible for the volcanic eruption that had killed so many of their troops along with the droids. He felt his wrath building to another explosion when the numerous instances of groundshakes that had disrupted the mission flashed through his mind. Every one that he could remember had indeed been immediately preceded by dark, angry thoughts from him. The worst quake, and eventually the volcano, had followed his act of darkness in the depths of the rock mound. The realization brought him to his knees again.

"Oh, Force," he said faintly, "It was me. I set off the volcano. Our troops are gone because of me!" Despair and horror washed over him. "It's my fault!" he wailed again, his face crumpling with emotion. "If I only hadn't…" His voice was overtaken by sobs again. He raised his overflowing eyes to the sky. "I'm failing!" he cried, his voice choked by tears. "I'm failing!"

Obi-Wan sat next to him, radiating confusion and concern. "Anakin, what do you mean? What are you failing? What's wrong? Please, just tell me!"

Anakin only hid his face in his hands.

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It took great effort, but Anakin managed to regain his composure in a reasonable amount of time. At first, Obi-Wan questioned him heavily about what was bothering him so much, but Anakin refused to speak of it. He could only imagine what would happen to the planet if he shared that foreboding tale.

"Not now, not here," he told the older Jedi unhappily. Obi-Wan looked worried, but didn't press him any further.

Obi-Wan sent up a call to the ship for a vehicle that could transport them to the place where his group had left their ships. Now that there were no more droids to vanquish, they no longer needed to walk over the plains, searching for them. Within an hour, a transport large enough for Anakin, Obi-Wan, the five clones, and Artoo appeared to pick them up. They returned to the spot where Obi-Wan's group had left their ships – ships that were now pilotless.

The ARC-170s sat in a mournful line across the plain, some of them tipped at odd angles because of the quakes. Obi-Wan decided that they would have to send a force of clone troopers back at some point to retrieve them, but for the moment, was content with reclaiming his own Delta 7. Anakin spent the whole time deep in thought – which was, in his case, a nice word for 'misery'. His failure with the Separatist leader had opened old wounds as well as forming new ones, and the knowledge that his anger had triggered the devastating volcanic eruption burned him.

He brooded about it the entire flight back to the main ship, where Obi-Wan opted to store his starfighter and enjoy the relative comfort of the larger ship rather than endure the long journey back through hyperspace in the tiny fighter.

As they stepped out of their smaller vehicles and into the hanger of the assault ship, Anakin could feel Obi-Wan's concern for him. It only made Anakin feel more ashamed of the disastrous consequences of his rage.

The Jedi Master guessed his train of thought, and offered an attempt at comfort.

"In the end, Anakin, I suppose it was for the best," he said. "My clones could never have defeated the droids – we were certainly misinformed about their numbers! If the volcano hadn't erupted when it did, the Separatists certainly would have won the contest for possession of this planet. You and I would most probably be dead right now, as well."

Anakin appreciated Obi-Wan's intent, but felt unworthy of the older Jedi's concern, especially since he had yet to inform Obi-wan of his killing of the Separatist woman. He was extremely upset with himself for failing this test of his strength; and knowing it was most likely one of many to come discouraged him deeply. He could only hope he would do better the next time he was provoked. It had just been so many things – his weariness, his hunger, his annoyance with the planet itself, his frustrations with the Council, his headache, his worries. He'd simply had no response left to give other than fury at the threat of such cruelty to his wife.

Anakin's worries multiplied when he considered the implications of that threat. The Separatist woman had known about his marriage! How had that come to be? How many others in the galaxy knew? And who had ordered the woman to stage that hideous, fatal show for him? And why?

The questions floated around and collided with each other in Anakin's brain until they were smashed into tiny, useless, irritating grains of thought, lying in piles inside his aching skull like so much sand, rubbing his brain raw. He was so tired, it was impossible for him to sort things out into any order that made sense. Eventually, he simply left them to sit and focused his attention on the thick mist that pushed at the edges of his consciousness until finally it broke through and invaded his mind.