The night was silent except for the sound of crickets chirping and the slow, quiet footsteps of three people walking through the dense jungle. Luckily for them, winding dirt paths were available so they could make their way through the vegetation without too much struggling.

Ivo, Guybrush and Elaine were on pretty high alert, knowing they were going through totally unknown territory in the middle of the night. They were moving in single file through the narrow dirt paths with Ivo first in line and Guybrush at the back to help make sure that Elaine would be well-protected in case of an attack of some kind.

Misty fog brought in from the humid sea air flowed and twisted through the trees, not thick enough to obscure vision but thick enough to give the place a rather creepy, otherworldly feel. The ground was mossy in some spots, causing the travelers to slip a bit once in a while. The hot, sticky air was rather stifling and left the three feeling like they were sweating profusely as beads of condensation formed on their faces from the mist.

The more Ivo walked, moving slowly and in a slight crouch to keep his steps as quiet as he could, the more things seemed to have an almost alien look to them; unnatural and strange, the look of the grey, gnarled trees seemed to be changing before his eyes... or perhaps it was sleep deprivation? Were the shadows playing tricks on him?

It was like something out of a dream...

"...are we there yet?" Guybrush's timid inquiry from the back almost caused Ivo to jump, startled out of his mesmerized thoughts. He shook his head a bit in annoyance, drawing a couple of deep breaths as he tried to get his thoughts back into focus.

"No, Guybrush, we're not," Ivo muttered back in a hushed tone, turning his head to indicate he was talking at Guybrush, but he didn't turn far enough to actually look at him. Turning his attention back to the surreal world around him, Ivo swallowed down his trepidation nervously. He was having a hard time not showing his feelings, but he was determined to conceal them as well as possible for Guybrush's sake, considering how easily freaked out the little guy was.

Finally, Ivo decided he couldn't take much more of this unusual scenery without confirming if it was real or not. The outer beach of the island definitely didn't look like this; peering into the jungles from the outside certainly hadn't revealed what he was finding here, either.

"Elaine? Guybrush?" Ivo asked quietly, looking up into the high branches above. Nothing but thick grey branches and ash white mists... "Are we so totally not in Kansas anymore or am I just losing my mind?"

A twig snapped quietly as Elaine stepped on it just behind Ivo. "This place does look pretty weird," she said, a very slight hint of nervousness evident in her usually utterly calm voice. "It's like we stepped into another world..."

The tension didn't help Elaine keep from gasping a bit as she suddenly felt arms snaking quickly around her waist and a rather tight grip immobilizing her. It only took a split second for her to realize that it was just her own husband... and he was trembling against her back.

"This place is giving me the CREEPS!" Guybrush whined, clinging to Elaine and pressing his head tightly against the side of her neck, seeking whatever solace he could in her presence. "We need to get out of here... to go back! I don't want to go any further! It's getting cold and ... eugh!" He was pretty close to totally freaking out.

Elaine twisted in Guybrush's grip, turning around to face him. "Oh, come on, Guybrush, it's not that bad. You've been in worse places than this!" she said quietly, running a hand through his hair a bit, trying to reassure him. "Remember how you told me about spending weeks in that UPS crate full of live snakes and voodoo supplies?"

"That was nothing like this," he insisted, his voice shaking a bit. "I just feel... ...I don't know... death..." He kept trembling, trying to stumble backwards with Elaine in his grip, urging her to get out of there with him.

"Guybrush... Guybrush, calm down, please!" Elaine said in a somewhat forceful but hushed tone. "Look, as long as we stay close to Ivo, we'll be fine, he seems like he probably knows his way around dangerous situa--..." She turned a bit as she said this, glancing over her shoulder to see where Ivo was headed.

He wasn't there.

Dread actually started seeping slowly into Elaine's mind - an occurence that she definitely wasn't used to. Guybrush was right; this place did smack of death. It was hard to pinpoint why, as if the answers lay just beyond normal human perception...

The feeling seemed to be getting to Guybrush far worse than herself, Elaine realized, and he was slipping away from her, his breath coming out in terrified gasps. With a low, trembling, seemingly uncontrollable groan of fear, he broke away from her grasp, turning and going into a flat-out run along the path they just came through.

"NO! Guybrush...! GUYBRUSH!" Elaine hissed out loudly through clenched teeth, her voice not daring to raise itself to a yell for fear of disturbing some unknown horror in the mists. Guybrush didn't even seem to hear her, driven away from the place by mind-numbing terror. Not wanting to be stranded alone without knowing where her husband was to boot, Elaine had no choice but to pursue him, leaning into a hard, swift run back along the same path, leaping over logs and batting branches out of her way as she put all her energy into keeping Guybrush within sight.

Ivo had no idea that he'd lost track of his companions. In his current state, it was as if he hadn't any companions in the first place. He was completely transfixed on the seemingly endless, alien jungle that lay before him. The mists, much thicker than before, now roiled about his legs, floating out in wispy swirls as his movements disturbed them.

Every step took him further into the unknown; further into the pervasive darkness that seemed to nearly close in around him, threatening to seep into his very soul. His mind screamed at him to leave this evil place, to run faster than he ever had in his life, but something kept him going. Raw fear coursed through his hammering heart, but he felt absolutely fascinated by it... he had to see what the mystery of this place was, though he was completely terrified that at any second, a gnarled hand would grab his shoulder, a muscular tentacle would lash out from the mists and wrap around his leg, or worse...

With his arms and legs starting to go numb with hyperventilation, Guybrush began to falter in his desperate run, wind milling his arms as he flailed along the path to try to keep his balance and stay on his feet. He didn't care if he had to stumble. He just wanted to get as far away from that place as possible... as fast as possible. After what he saw...

In his near blind run, Guybrush failed to see a large rock slightly offcenter of the path and bashed a foot right into it in mid-stride, letting out a loud yelp of terror as he pitched forward, thinking he was being dragged down by some sort of monster. He slammed face-first into the mossy ground so hard that it shook slightly around him. As he was trying to regain his senses, he didn't have time to react much to what he suddenly heard and felt. Rapid footfalls and panting reached his ears, closing in on him... He rolled over onto his back and started to thrash out in self-defense when something large landed right on him with a loud grunt.

Elaine suddenly found herself engaged in a brief wrestling match with her screaming husband. She was trying to pin him down, to keep him there - to keep him from running away and leaving her again. For a moment, he was completely out of his mind, seeing her as his nightmarish assailant, and he was trying to defend himself. It finally registered that she wasn't a threat when he heard her voice cutting through his emotions.

"GUYBRUSH! It's ME! Elaine! Calm down!" she yelled, feeling a little better about making noise in these surroundings now that they were a pretty good distance from the offending area. Much to her relief, he stopped struggling, falling back against the ground and fighting to catch his breath, gasping for air after his taxing sprint through the trees.

Elaine was breathing pretty hard herself, especially after receiving a well-placed knee in the gut from Guybrush's blind assault. She shifted her weight, taking most of it off of Guybrush, one hand and one knee planted on the ground beside him. "What has gotten into you, Guybrush!?" she asked after several hard breaths, raising her head to look down at him and try to read his expressions. His eyes were tightly shut and his face was twisted in a grimace of struggle as he shook his head, trying to force the images out of his mind.

"He was... he was there," the pirate forced out between gasps for breath, practically sobbing. "In my ... I saw him in my mind... Elaine, I saw him...!!"

Seeing Guybrush like this was starting to frighten Elaine as she stared down at him, shaking her head with a very confused, worried look on her face. "Saw who...?!"

Ice cold fear stabbed through Ivo's heart as he suddenly heard the sound echoing out of nowhere.

*hooohhh-KUUHHHHHH*...

Feeling seemed to just drain out of Ivo's body and he struggled to turn around in place, reeling from the immense stress his mind was under, trying to see what was beyond the looming mists and gnarled trees. No... No, that's impossible, he thought desperately to himself, hoping, praying that his mind was just playing tricks on him.

*hoooohhhhh-KUUUUUHHHHHHHH*...

There was no longer any doubting the reality of the matter. That hollow, menacing sound was almost universal in its symbolism. Just as he believed what his ears heard, Ivo's eyes were met with the most terrifying thing he ever saw in his life.

The mists parted as if flowing quickly away from the approaching figure, trying to escape it, creating an aura-like effect that flowed around its huge body, accentuating the obsidian helmet. At first, the small red lights on the chest were the only details discernable on the towering, caped silhouette.

Brilliant crimson light exploded through the area in the form of an energy arc, accompanied by an earsplitting crackling as the lightsaber flared to life.

The features of his suit and helmet now menacingly illuminated by the near-blinding glow of his weapon, Darth Vader slowly advanced on Ivo, one hand gripping the deeply humming lightsaber and the other hand held casually at his side.

Totally immobilized with fear for what was far too long, Ivo's mind was screaming at him to run. He knew there was no way he could win this one. One slash from the lightsaber would saw his own cutlass in half like a knife through warm butter. Even that wasn't the foremost thought in his mind, though. Above all, he was wondering... WHY.

Feeling like he was wearing several hundreds of pounds of lead on his arms and legs, he managed to turn around and, with a terrified gasp that he could barely choke down, started to run, though it was as if no speed could ever be fast enough to get him away from this terror.

And it wouldn't be. Rendered clumsy by his horror, Ivo stumbled out onto the dirt path, experiencing everything in slow motion as the pounding footfalls of the Sith Lord's increasing pace sounded like an earthquake in his ears. The sound of the lightsaber as it moved with its wielder seemed deafening, thrumming so loudly as to shake reality itself...

Complete desperation flooded Ivo's mind and he just sprinted as hard as he could, not caring where he was headed as long as it was away from here. He could no longer comprehend any possible reason why he had gone through a turn of events that would end up with him being chased down by Darth Vader himself, who was moving much faster than his large frame and assumed age would appear to allow.

The intensity of every sense was multiplied by thousands in Ivo's mind now. Every movement he saw, every sound he heard, every scrape of a passing branch on his arm - it all penetrated to the core of his being, terrifying him, serving as greater and greater reminders that no matter how fast he tried to run, he would die soon.

He didn't get to run very far before he felt one leg being swept back and out from under him in mid-stride by some invisible force. Unable to regain his balance, he screamed and fell forward hard, skidding in the dirt, struggling to try to scramble back to his feet. Just as he came to a stop and was about to push himself up on his hands and knees, Ivo felt a huge boot slam into his back and shove him down to the ground again.

...an unnaturally huge boot...

The same boot quickly pulled back and then hooked under Ivo's shoulder, pulling up and flipping him over onto his back with little effort. He yelled out in pain, landing badly on a few small rocks and branches, knowing those were going to leave some nasty bruises on his back. As soon as he landed, the boot thumped onto his chest, pinning him there, and he found himself face-to-face with the tip of the lightsaber. Any attempt to roll out from under it would cost him an entire arm at the least.

Darth Vader just stood there, his other foot on the ground, almost ... waiting for something. He kept the lightsaber held perfectly still just inches from Ivo's chin and neck, the heat emissions of the weapon starting to scorch the grey shirt.

Ivo fought to catch his breath, trembling in terror, eyes shut tightly, knowing the end was coming any instant now. All it required was a slight thrust of the energy blade and that would be it. He lay there defenseless, his chest heaving, his mind now occupied with only a single thought.

Arashi... I'm so sorry... I couldn't save you...

After 15 seconds that seemed like an eternity of dread, he realized that Darth Vader was just ... standing there, staring down at him, breathing loudly and evenly.

Slowly and cautiously opening his eyes, trying to cringe back from the blinding glow of the lightsaber, Ivo finally asked, "...w-why...??"

He never thought he would hear that thundering voice in person.

"You have information that is of great importance to me, Doctor Robotnik," the Sith Lord boomed, further intimidating Ivo by knowing his name so easily. "And I intend to get it from you... right now."

"What information!?" Ivo asked in almost a shriek, unable to think of what Vader would want from him. Plans for ships!? Some other engineering feat!? None of this was making any sense!

Raising the lightsaber slightly so that Ivo could feel its menacing heat washing over his face, Darth Vader began to state his wishes that would, no doubt, be at the core of some underhanded plot to dominate the galaxy...

"You will tell me the location of the nearest Burger King."

Ivo was pretty sure he could feel his brain just break as he stared back at Darth Vader, completely and utterly dumbfounded. After about 5 seconds, he managed to find only a single word.

"...what!?!?"

Another few seconds and Ivo could see and hear, much to his further bewilderment, that Darth Vader's shoulders were shaking and his loud breathing was starting to come out in wheezes of laughter. Finally, he threw his voice into the greatly amused wheezing and took his huge foot off of Ivo's chest, nearly doubling over as he stumbled against a tree, leaning one arm on it and deactivating his lightsaber with the other hand.

"...hahahahahahaha...! HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA... AHAHAHAHAAHAHAHAHAHAHA!!!"

"...Dude...!? What's going ON, man!? Why'd you attack me!? What's so funn--!? I don't--?? It--!? But--!" Ivo started to drop nearly into Threepwood Gibberish, sitting up, just watching Vader degenerate into hysterical laughter and slowly reach up with one arm to slip his gloved fingers under the rim of his helmet.

In a few seconds, a hissing noise shot from the helmet and the laughter had a very abrupt, odd change of tone. It no longer sounded like Darth Vader. It sounded like--

The helmet and mask thumped to the ground and Episode 3 Anakin Skywalker turned a bit, his back to the tree, sliding down to a sitting position, still laughing, a hand up to his face. "YOU SHOULD HAVE SEEN THE LOOKS ON YOUR FACE!!" he cackled hysterically, practically in tears.

Ivo just blinked several times, staring at Anakin, things finally becoming clear. The guy didn't have that scar over his eye. His hair looked different - fuller, with a distinct and very familiar flair. His hands and feet were unusually large for a human. And he had the makings of that Smirk on his face. That SMIRK.

Ivo finally realized that he just had a huge practical joke played on him...

...that he was looking at 'Jen-Anakin'...

...and that the Favorites now numbered three.