Aeris was quiet as they made their way through the town surrounding the spaceport. The whole area seemed somewhat unusual. The fact that much of the ground seemed to be blanketed by some sort of mist or fog also seemed a bit strange. The way it moved seemed almost unnatural, and it gave her an uneasy feeling, so she did her best to avoid the areas where it seemed denser.<br/><br/>With that in mind, she led them down a specific path, and towards a specific goal. She focused much of her attention on this, although she also remained open in the Force, specifically monitoring An, the Sith, and the girl they were here for. She shook her head a little when Jek asked where all the people had gone, having no answer to give him. “A little longer, still,” she answered his other question as she continued to lead them forward.<br/><br/>Jax, for his part, seemed a bit preoccupied as they walked. “Why do I have this ominous feeling?” he wondered aloud. “Because we’re walking into a trap, probably,” Aeris retorted in a calm, matter-of-fact manner as they began to near a clearing, where she had felt An’s presence. The moment they entered the clearing, Jax had rushed towards An. “An! You’re here!” She’d barely had time to finish speaking before he appeared before her, taking her into his arms and holding her tightly, yet tenderly, as if holding something precious that he couldn’t risk losing, or breaking.<br/><br/>“Of course, it did, seeing as this wasn’t actually our destination,” Aeris replied as her eyes scanned the area, which was blanketed in a dense layer of fog. “I was trying to avoid this place…” she added with a soft sigh, answering both An and Jek at once. “But I suppose the Force, or perhaps someone strong in the Force, had other plans,” she shrugged, not blaming An, given that she hadn’t shared her intentions with her or any of the others. Something in the Force had warned her to avoid this place, and the fog certainly didn’t help her unease, but she guessed that was not the case for An-Lok, as she had evidently been drawn here instead.<br/><br/>Aeris frowned when Jek noted that he couldn’t feel anything, while An noted that the place was teeming with dark energy. Jax pulled away just a little, looking at An, then glancing back to the others. “I don’t feel either of those things. To me, it actually feels peaceful, which is odd, since I felt really uneasy up until now,” he noted, his gaze shifting to Aeris as if to ask what she felt, or if she knew what was going on. “Hey, don’t look at me. I…” she began before her attention shifted to Jek, who appeared wobbly, taking several staggering steps away from her, towards the center.<br/><br/>“Jek, don’t!” she warned before he suddenly went limp and began to fall. She used the Force to aid her as she rushed forward to his side, sliding beneath him and breaking his fall before he could hit the ground. She clicked her tongue as she cradled his head in her lap for a moment before looking back towards An and Jax. “An illusion, indeed,” she nodded to An-Lok’s words. “The girl isn’t here, though. Not exactly. She is beyond the borders of this place. I can feel her. She is unconscious, but for now, still alive,” Aeris explained as she closed her eyes, placing her fingertips on Jek’s forehead, trying to use the Force to wake him and free him of whatever illusion held his mind captive.<br/><br/>“An illusion? But then how do we break it?” Jax asked, frowning slightly. After a moment, he blinked in apparent confusion, looking around as if he’d heard a voice that no one else could hear. “Wait, where are we?” he asked a few moments later, looking around with clear confusion. “Why are we…?” he started to ask before he stopped, blinking several more times as his vision began to fade. “What…” he didn’t manage to get the words out before he, too, went limp and began to fall. At least he had the presence of mind to fall backward, rather than falling forward and putting all of his weight on An.<br/><br/>“Jax!” Aeris called before clicking her tongue and looking around, reaching out with the Force. She moved from beneath Jek, gently resting his head on the ground before she began to rise, the hilts of her lightsabers already in her hands by the time she had stood to her full height. “Show yourself,” she pointed one of the hilts off to her right, where no one could be seen, at least, not until they finally revealed themselves.<br/><br/>“Oh? The two of you are still standing, I see,” the lightly accented male voice could be heard before his figure was revealed. “I suppose I shouldn’t be surprised,” he mused, appearing unperturbed by this development, although whether that was because this was the plan all along, because it still worked in his favor, or because it didn’t matter at all, they could only guess. “So, what’s your plan here?” Aeris asked, taking a slow, casual step to the side, placing herself directly between the Sith and Jek. “I gather you aren’t trying to kill us, at least not yet,” she noted as she looked the man over, much of his visage covered by a dark hooded cloak.<br/><br/>The laugh that spilled forth from the Sith felt so twisted that it might have been unnerving to anyone who wasn’t accustomed to such. “Right to the point, aren’t you?” his voice sounded almost amused. “But you didn’t really think I was going to just tell you my plan, did you?” he asked, earning a shrug from Aeris, along with a look that said ‘who knows?’ This brought forth another dark chuckle from the Sith as he looked off in the distance.<br/><br/>“I wonder. What might you be willing to do to save a girl you’ve never even met?” he mused aloud before turning his attention back to Aeris, who kept her eyes locked on him but showed no particular reaction to his words. “How about the ones you care about?” he wondered, his dark smile growing as he watched her brows knit together in the beginnings of a frown. “What about… the one you love?” he asked, glancing down at Jek, then back up to Aeris. This time, her eyes narrowed darkly, and she gripped the hilts in her hands a little tighter, as if preparing to defend him if the need arose.<br/><br/>The Sith simply smiled for a moment before turning his attention to An-Lok. “And what about you, my dear? What might you do to protect the one you love?” he wondered with a dark amusement clear on his face. “What about your friends?” he asked, glancing back to Aeris and Jek before looking back towards An-Lok. “How far would you go to protect them? What would you sacrifice?” he wondered.<br/><br/>As the Sith spoke to An-Lok, Aeris tried to clear her mind, to keep calm, to dispel whatever Dark Side tricks this Sith was using on them. He was trying to tempt them or perhaps bait them into attacking him. More than that, though, she thought that he was subtly working to keep them distracted, to keep their attention on him. But why? As she thought this, the fog around them began to move in an even more unnatural way, forming what looked like tendrils writhing about. What was this?<br/><br/>She couldn’t help but wonder, was this fog what was actually playing tricks on them, not the Sith? Had he been using the Force to distract their minds, to keep them from noticing what was all around them? Was this Sith controlling it, or was it someone else? Was the fog itself just another trick? And why wasn’t it affecting her and An? Or perhaps it was affecting them, just differently? Did An even see the fog, or was it just her? She didn’t know the answers to these questions yet, but there was something about this fog—no, this entire place—that she didn’t like.<br/><br/><span style="font-style: italic">“An, do you see this fog?”</span>she asked telepathically through the Force, wondering if it was visible to her since from the way the other two had behaved, it seemed like they hadn’t noticed it. Of course, An had been sitting here amid the fog, just waiting for them, which might mean that she couldn’t see it, either. Then again, if she’d been basking in the Dark Side, she might have thought it a manifestation of that, which she guessed might explain things, too. There was also the possibility that the fog was just an illusion in her own mind, much like what the others had felt. Although she didn’t think that was the case, she couldn't rule it out, either.<span style="font-style: italic">"Something isn’t right here. I just can’t quite put my finger on it,”</span>she spoke to An telepathically once again.