"That is considerably different than what my parents told me about Darth Vader while I was growing up," Kylo pondered the situation seething. "And the Republic's history sites…" He trailed off his words, clenching his fist.

"I suppose history can be altered by victors to suit their perspectives," Apple drew her feet up onto the dark velvety couch wrapping her arms around her legs to rest her chin onto her knees. It was a childlike and doleful posture that she probably never would have taken in court, but he found it suited her.

She continued downcast, "…Even if it isn't true."

"The Republic's corruption has gone on long enough." Kylo ground his teeth as various items throughout the room trembled under his mental power. "The First Order will establish a future of justice and order. And history will reveal the true power and honor of our family."

She tilted her head to the side, resting her cheek on her knees and reached out to pat his forearm in tender strokes. "You know what I like about you. You make me feel better when I'm concerned about something. You're loyal to our family. And I can talk to you about father without you being jealous or judgmental. Other sith envied him, while non-force sensitives feared him," voice mournful, "And apparently the Republic villainized him on the history sites."

The jittering of inanimate objects around the room ceased. He regarded her hand on his arm for a moment before haltingly covering it with his own. "Darth Vader was a visionary. We will rewrite history." He slipped his hand off hers as he glanced away. "My parents never would admit to the truth of what you have divulged… not even Luke. They were so pro-Jedi and the Republic."

"They probably just didn't know," Apple tried to assuage his feelings, explaining further, "my father told me the story himself when I asked him where Luke came from. Your parents didn't have that one-on-one opportunity."

She interrupted herself, touching her bandaged fingers to her lips, "Although at that time, father must have thought that I was asking him about where babies come from, because he first launched into a very awkward epilogue on why I shouldn't date until I'm forty and how all men everywhere are skirt-chasing-Hut-spawn."

Kylo dropped his head with a chuckle.

"But," Apple held up her index finger, returning to her original apologue, "in the end, he revealed to me personally everything that happened in his life. Because of the jedi, he was prevented from saving his mother, lost his wife, and was kept from knowing that his son was even alive," her shoulders scrunched and her head lowered heartsick, "And then after all that, he is now criminalized in Republic history?"

Their conversation weighed heavily on Kylo. Clenching and unclenching his fists, he shifted his body forward to lean upon his thighs. "This whole time, I hadn't understood the depth of his struggles."

Apple slid her legs off the couch so that she could wrap her arms around him comfortingly, "That's alright, you know the truth now. And you two are a lot a like: Alone in your struggles. Strong in the force." She looked upward with a teasing smile, "Moody."

He regarded her flatly, "funny."

The princess chuckled then hugged his shoulders in a playful shaking motion, "you know what I mean, Kylo." She placed her chin on his upper arm, "we're family. We share things together and we support each other. And we have a lot of force traits in common."

Kylo turned his head to her slowly, "Such as the dark side?"

"Well, that's not really a feminine thing," Apple bit on her bottom lip, daintily, "I prefer the balance, but you men engage in the dark side things and swinging lightsabers," her lips broke into a smile, "And father was amazing with lightsabers."

"But you're not against me seeking power in the dark side?" He asked earnestly, turning his entire upper body towards her.

"Why would you ask such a question?" Apple furrowed her brow.

"My mother sent me away to learn from Luke because she feared the dark side and my admiration for Darth Vader. Instead my parents wanted me to be like my namesake, Obi Wan Kenobi."

Eyes widening, Apple sat back in her seat with a troubled gasp, "I just can't believe…" her eyes teared up, "your parents raised you to revere the traitor Obi Wan and disparage my father. What was wrong with them?"

"I feel so deceived." Kylo dropped his head, then growled fiercely, "Always judging and they were far from perfect themselves," he spat, "they spent every waking moment arguing, and my mother's work always came first. Then my father ran off. A smuggler, he had more debts across the galaxy than there are body parts in a saarlac pit. And he left us to pay them off, while he went joy riding across the outer rim."

"That's horrible." She rubbed her hand in a circle soothingly on his back.

"It makes me incredibly angry." He pounded his fist on his thigh as his mind threw the coffee table over.

"Come here," Apple pulled him into her arms attempting to rock his much bigger-than-her-form, "Tell your little aunt all about it." Unfortunately, her trying to rock him was as awkward as an Ewok rocking a wookie. Eyes wide, she could hardly budge his much larger physique. "Erp."

"They spent my childhood telling me lies about the one powerful and honorable man in the family, while they esteemed Obi Wan at every turn." He opened up, his words garbled in his despair. "Now… I don't know what to believe. …If I was stronger in the force, I would have sensed the lies long ago."

"Kylo, you are very strong in the force. You can't blame yourself; Maybe they thought what they were saying was the truth…" She patting his back to comfort him. "And if they thought it, then you wouldn't sense lies technically. That wasn't a lack of the force on your part; It was just a lack of true knowledge on theirs. Maybe they just got things off the Republic net or some false source that they trusted."

"They felt that way about Darth Vader from before I was born." Kylo glowered, then realization dawned on him. He shifted his eyes to her, "Luke was going to join the imperial academy until he met his jedi master."

"Who?"

"Obi Wan Kenobi."

Apple froze, stiffly. "Well…that's… that's…" She scrunched her face upset but unable to find the words to express it.

"Jedi and Republic lies have cost our family much," Kylo took the words right out of her mouth.

"Exactly," she said then strained to crack a half-smile for his benefit, "But at least you know that you weren't lacking in power nor were your parents lying to you. It's all that awful Jedi's fault."

The dark knight slammed his fist down on the couch's arm, crushing it. Tufts of springs and foam popped into the air. "If I was stronger, I would have kept up our family honor with the deaths of our enemies earlier. All jedi will die for this."

"Kylo," Apple said gently, reaching out her searching fingers for his helmet. Finding the release on his visor, she opened it, "look at me with your real eyes."

The visor snapped up with a hiss to expose his face. She telekinetically removed it from him, while she gingerly wiped the sides of his face with her bandaged fingers. Although she couldn't see his face, his skin was wet either from perspiration or from tears. His aura wafted disquiet and sorrow.

Apple turned his face to the side and kissed his cheek with a soothing mother's kiss. "Obi Wan betrayed our entire family."

She kissed his other cheek. "And you are not at fault, nor perhaps even your parents for falling for his treachery. But father ended him years ago; so he no longer can harm us. And instead of wasting your time hunting Jedi, just focus on pressing forward. Focus on the future, instead of the past."

She tilted her head back to proudly smile up at him as she would have done so praising her father. "You are your grandfather's legacy. You have no one standing in your way for greatness. No one. There are no Obi Wans here to betray you. No Republic now to stop you. And I am here to support you." She hugged him, curling her head against his chest. "I believe in you."

The dark knight enveloped her tiny frame in his arms. "Thank you for telling me the real truth." He entangled his gloved fingers in her blonde curls tenderly. "Where were you years ago?"

She looked up at him with a quirky smile. "Frozen. Father knew the Rebellion were coming so he had me frozen in carbonite to protect me."

Kylo's expression hardened, nostrils flaring. "The rebellion's descendants will pay for that. I will avenge our family's honor," His red tear soaked eyes blazed, "to the death."

The princess pulled away from him to fix his uniform, blindly. "You are a true tribute to your grandfather's memory—if anyone can uphold the family honor, it is you."

His anger softened.

She sympathetically turned her face down towards the carpet rods. "But I really am sorry that you had to hear from me about the lies fed to your parents. No wonder they served the rebellion and are now in the resistance. This whole thing has caused you and them some distress and my heart goes out to you."

"I don't need your pity," he frowned, bristling.

"Not my pity, Kylo," she made a face, "pity is for ugly people. You," she poked his chest, "my handsome nephew, instead have my love and support. Besides, we have shared a freakish mental-bonding experience where I witnessed first hand you having an epic battle with yourself. Nearly killed us both," she grinned with a whimsical flare, "but from what I saw there, I knew that I could never pity you."

His frown morphed into an amused smile. "The dark side gains its power from hate and anger. You're making it hard for me to remain angry."

"Anger is for the battlefield," she smoothed her gown, "happiness is for the home."

He shifted away to glare at the rest of the room. "If only my parents, thought as you do. Things would have been different. I wouldn't have done the things that I had to do."

Apple didn't respond. Her silence surprised him. There wasn't a second when she wasn't chattering about something. But he didn't look at her—he couldn't look at her. Especially not at that moment.

Instead the dark knight flitted his eyes to the After-Action meeting in the adjoining conference room. The idea of it kept him grounded. Military officers conversed adamantly, some with austere composure, but all the sounds of their boisterous interactions were absorbed in the auditory buffering.

Through the transparent polymer window, he could see Hux standing to pace before the holographic officers, giving another one of his dynamic speeches. The general was a first rate orator. And from the expressions on the men's faces, he could see that this incidence was no exception to the rule. While the First Order was continuing on, Kylo's family troubles were tearing at him to stumble backwards.

The Dark knight clutched his fingers rolling them against each other to form a fist, saying after a long pause, "Now, only my mother and Luke remain in the way of my greatness."

"Kylo Ren, don't you dare get any ideas," Apple ventured lightly, "they are Skywalkers. They too are suffering because of other people's lies and prejudices. Neither one of them didn't know how much our father desired to change the universe for the better. They didn't know that he was the one chosen to balance the force."

The princess prattled on in a diminutive girlish voice as she played subconsciously with ribbon ends on her dress, "The Jedi were his real enemies. Corrupt women-haters that did everything possible to keep your grandfather and grandmother apart. And even worse, my father-your grandfather's"—she corrected herself for his benefit— "very own jedi master, Obi Wan Creepy-Kenobi not only betrayed him by chopping off his arm and both his legs and threw him into a lava pit to die. None of this was told to them."

Her sightless eyes lit with loyal fire. "Instead that horrible jedi just had to be the man to convince Luke and your mother to fight against their own father. And after he tried to steal their mother away, telling Padme lies about her own loving husband. Can you see it is not Luke or Leia that are in your way, just the memory of a dead criminal."

An almost audible gasp filled the air above them. The two of them looked around for a moment for the source then just shrugged it off as the officers' meeting played out in the adjoining room. Kylo smacked the side of his fist down on the speaker's controls a few times. "I thought I had turned these off."

—

"Oh I'm never going to after-live this one down," Anakin whispered with a grimace as he and Obi Wan watched them from behind the ethereal film, unseen even by their force-sensitive eyes.

Both spirits appeared as they were in their youthful prime, the age of their souls only reflected in twinkling mist around the edge of their aura fields. Except, the ex-sith's blue aura had an extra tinge of pink to it, wafting in and out of his core from embarrassment. He covered his face with a hand, sneaking glances at his companion's ever changing expression.

Obi Wan lifted an eyebrow at his once student, arms folded. "Interesting version of history you told your daughter there."

Anakin grimaced sheepishly. "I was frazzled when she started asking about… where Luke came from. I thought I had to give her the.… you know, the talk."

"You had her believing her whole life that Jedi were scum."

Anakin flashed him a wry grin. "To be fair, Jedi-scum was a real imperial colloquialism."

"And whom do you think started that saying?" Obi Wan was far from buying it.

"You can't prove that was me. There were a lot of sith in the empire that hated jedi just as much as I did."

"You told an innocent girl a load of banta fodder and now, she's passing it onto your impressionable nephew?" Obi Wan gave him the look.

"My story kept my daughter alive in the Empire." Anakin refused to allow himself to wither under his ex-master's accusing glare. "She had to be an imperial, with imperial ideals. It kept her safe."

"You lied to her."

"No, I never lied to her…per se." Anakin shifted his stance a little uncomfortable, "It was precisely how I felt at the time." He countered the jedi's glare with one of his own, "I suppose that it is no different then you telling Luke that I killed myself. To this day, he believes I have homicidal-suicidal tendencies."

"You did have homicidal tendencies." The jedi master regarded him straightly, "you killed a jedi temple full of younglings."

Anakin flashed him a hateful look. "Am I to continually hear about that for all eternity?"

"You accused me of having an affair with Padme?" Obi Wan narrowed his expression flatly, "Your wife. I am a Jedi. We don't form attachments, especially not with other men's"—he emphasized again—"wives!"

"Lots of Jedis pulled a Bindo. I pulled a Bindo. Several in my class pulled Bindo's," Anakin folded his arms defensively, "You and the council just didn't know about all of them. And the good thing for them too or there wouldn't be a continuation of force sensitives, now would there?"

"That doesn't mean I," Obi Wan put a hand on his transparent chest, "would relive Padawan Jolee Bindo's exploits. He started a wife-chasing craze that nearly destroyed a generation of jedi."

Anakin twitched his eyebrows, "Yeah, I heard the stories."

"Not humorous, Annie," Obi Wan needled.

"And neither were your many rendezvous with Padme, Ben," he needled back.

"I was asking her help to get you see reason—to convince you not to go to the dark side."

"That's not how it appeared to me. It seemed a lot like an attempted Bindo-steal to me," the ex-sith defended himself, "I saw how you gazed at her. She was my wife!"

"I'll give you that she was a very beautiful woman, but she was preg-nant," Obi Wan emphasized the word.

"Exactly!" Anakin jabbed his index finger at him. "We both know how you feel about pregnant women, you pregg0-phile."

Obi Wan opened his mouth to retort then closed it with a salty smile. "Pregnant women are rather—"

"Don't say it," Anakin covered his ears, not that would help—they communicated by telepathy as spirits, "I don't need anymore corruption in my afterlife."

Obi Wan shook his head of the conversation. "Anakin, I never intentionally sought to take away your wife."

"You sought to take away my legs."

"You deserved that."

Anakin thought about it for a moment. "True. But that's not the point. I told Apple my story," he smirked, "from a certain point of view."

Obi Wan threw up his hands. "And here we come full circle once again." He regarded his once padawan, "Now we know where your grandson gets his relentless stubbornness from."

"No that's from his mother." Anakin smiled. "And she gets it from Padme."

Obi Wan turned back to the mortal world and squinted his eyes. "Huh? Did that young general just intimate that he was going to marry your daughter?"

"Whaaaattt?!" Anakin burst furious.

—-

An intense electromagnetic pulse struck the officer's induction area of the flagship in an instant. With a roaring screech, the lights in the meeting room erupted into a series of minor explosions. LED bulbs shattered. Control panels sparked. Pungent smoke poured out of them, filling the corners of the room.

General Hux gripped the edges of the conference table as the room shuddered, back up lights flickering on and off. The pitcher of water trembled on the table, jumping in a frightful dance a few times before tumbling over and shattering. A single H9T5 droid convulsed before blowing its top. With a "weeee-sputz", it died.

Officers started murmuring and whispering unnerved, except Dul'al that glanced around smirking as his hologram fluttered with static. The other officers' holograms blinked out completely before the backup generators rerouted.

"Ghosts," Rokens crouched, backing towards the door, teeth chattering on the edge of hysteria and wide eyes scanning the ceiling, "They're back."

"Enough!" Hux shot out of his seat. "Men get a hold of yourselves!" He reigned them in with a single look. "I will not have a mass panic over superstition." He opened his commlink. "Lieutenant Commander Ru?"

"Yes, sir," the man's Naboo-accented voice replied.

"We're experiencing an influx of power surge in the induction area of level 6," Hux relayed calmly. "Report."

"It was an unknown internal power surge, sir. No outside probes or ships within the vicinity. Scanners are 99.6% functional with no relay of transmission bing," Ru replied dutifully.

"And where is the Lord Kylo Ren, currently?"

"One moment, sir," he replied, then barked a muffled order in the background to another officer before returning to the mike, "Internal Monitors indicate his communicator is located within the officer's green room adjoining you, sir."

"Thank you, Lieutenant Commander." Hux shut off his communicator and shifted his eyes to the uncomfortable officers before him, "Now gentlemen," he glanced over at the lounge's polymer window.

A shadowed image loomed in the darker adjoining room, holding a red lightsaber. "There's your ghost right there, gentlemen," Hux interlaced his fingers, leaning onto his elbows over the table. "There are no such things as ghosts, but there are knight's of Ren." He hit the speaker controls on his command chair. "Lord Ren, could you keep your destruction of priceless equipment down in there. We're trying to finish a meeting."

The shadowed image of Kylo Ren flashed him an obscene gesture before shutting off his lightsaber.

"And now that our ghost story has come to an end," the young general returned to the After-Action meeting, "Captain Dul'al. Report."