Whenever Jacen wasn't deflecting his mysterious opponent's lightwhip with his lightsaber, he found himself bounding off the walls and occasionally flipping back a few meters to avoid the attacks. And in the few instances where he was able to get a look at the opponent several meters before him, he made out a dark-robed, possibly human, female with a triangular headdress and a cover for her mouth.

Three minutes into the fight with the lightwhip-wielding adversary, Jacen suddenly seized in place when he saw Jaina, with her eyes yellow-red and skin withered as before, appear right in front of him. But just as quickly as she appeared, Jaina's form dissipated into nothingness as the lightwhip reached out and scored a glancing hit on Jacen's left shoulder.

He reeled away from the attack and was back to deflecting his opponent's weapon with his 'saber; a minute and a half later, Jaina reappeared to him again.

This time, however, Jacen didn't let himself get distracted as he brought his weapon up in time to deflect what would have been a fatal strike for his heart. Then, with his free hand, he reached out through the Force and threw his opponent back, even with Jaina's illusory form still in front of him.

"Give up, Jacen," Jaina's crackling voice said. "You can't stop what we'll do with Ben."

Jacen ignored the illusion as he ran right through its dissipating form to reengage with his dark-robed foe. He trotted forward for several meters before he stopped right where he thought the lightwhip-wielder landed and looked around by his blade's illumination.

"His fall will be inevitable," Jaina said as her form continuously appeared every way Jacen turned. "There is nothing you can do."

"Oh, yeah?" Jacen retorted, deliberately avoiding the corrupted eyes of the image that represented his twin. "The future's always in motion. And as long as that's the case, there's something I can-"

He was cut off from completing that sentence when he leaped back from the lightwhip striking down from the ceiling. When Jacen stood up from his crouch, his opponent followed suit with her weapon and, upon landing in her own crouch, unleashed a torrent of Force-lightning from her free hand before standing up to her full height.

Naturally, Jacen caught it on his blade and stayed in place as the torrent tried to overcome his Force-defenses. In the meantime, he hurriedly looked around to see if there was any way he could break his foe's attack and saw a thin stalagmite nearby. With his free hand, he used the Force to break the rocky formation from its place and hurl it at the lightwhip-wielder.

As expected, Jacen's opponent ceased her torrent of lightning and swung her lightwhip around to cleave the stalagmite into two pieces that sailed past her harmlessly from either side. But the distraction was enough for Jacen to close the gap with her and slash downward at her.

However, she caught the Jedi's blade at the base of her whip, wrapped it around while pivoting Jacen in place, and then delivered a kneecap to his solar plexus that sent him flying back several meters. He collapsed to his front, the wind knocked out of him, and when he looked up, he saw that the lightwhip-wielder was holding his lightsaber in her other hand.

Without hesitation, Jacen's opponent tossed the 'saber up into the air and lashed out with her lightwhip to cleave the pommel in two. The Jedi watched in worry as his bisected weapon clattered to the ground between him and his enemy; his Corusca gem lay exposed amidst the destroyed pommel pieces.

When Jacen redirected his gaze at his opponent, he was only slightly surprised when she lowered her lightwhip to her side.

"Behold, Jedi," she said as her free hand pointed behind him.

Jacen grimaced as he pushed himself to his feet and adopted a defensive stance with his arms; even without his lightsaber, he still had the Force as his ally, and he vowed to himself that he'd find a way to defeat the still-armed Sith.

"Oh, yeah, like I'm falling for that," he said in response.

"Jacen," a creaky male voice said from behind him.

At that, Jacen immediately forgot about the Sith in front of him and whirled around to see a fair-skinned human man with red hair, red-yellow eyes, and withered skin, just like Jaina. And all of these details were accentuated by a dark-red aura illuminating him from the near-total blackness around them.

It took Jacen only a moment to realize that he was seeing a grown-up version of his cousin, who looked to be in his mid-twenties at least. "Ben?"

"You failed to save me, Jacen," the adult version of Ben said in a despondent way. "Just like you failed to save Jaina. Just like you failed to save my mother!"

Before Jacen could even think of a response, a great line of blinding pain streaked diagonally across his back and brought him down, screaming, to his hands and knees.

When he recovered well enough from the pain, he looked back up and saw, in Ben's place, Vergere looking down upon him with a disappointed expression on her face and a chiding shake of her head.

"How weak you turned out to be, my apprentice," the long-dead Fosh said. "And to think that after everything I taught you, you would end up like this."

At Vergere's words, Jacen couldn't help but think back to his return to Coruscant when he was chasing after Jaina. The unintended reminder from the deceased Force-user brought to mind the lack of any remnant of his oneness with the Force when he killed Onimi and ended the Yuuzhan Vong War years ago.

"Yes, you had peaked in your potential, Jacen," the voice of his opponent—the very same voice he heard before he landed in this asteroid—said in a tone that mirrored Vergere's. "But now that's dead and gone. Now you're not strong enough to save those you care about. As your sister cements her destiny as the final judge of the Jedi, your cousin, even now, begins his own turn to the dark side. Your aunt is nothing but ashes, and your uncle has been severely diminished in power. Tell me, how long do you think it will be before your parents meet their own untimely ends? Do you think that they will fall by your sister's blade just as Mara did?"

The lightwhip-wielder ceased speaking long enough to take a few steps toward the downed Jacen, who remained in place even after Vergere's form dissipated.

When the sound of her footsteps ended, Jacen's opponent asked, "How long do you think it'll be before Jaina has her reunion with Tenel Ka... or little Allana?"

At that, Jacen turned his head toward the Sith and gritted his teeth in anger.

"Oh, yes," the woman said. "Your thoughts betray them, Jacen. Now tell me: who do you think would be a greater Sith to succeed Jaina? Your cousin... or your daughter?"

Overcoming the pain in his back, Jacen yelled hoarsely as he shot himself up to his feet and charged at the Sith, uncaring of the lightwhip in her hand.

But, as if willing to oblige him in hand-to-hand combat, the Sith deactivated her weapon and plunged both herself and Jacen into the cavern's total darkness. Yet she didn't need sight as her actions, as they were guided by the Force, allowed her to outmaneuver Jacen's attempted strangulation of her and slap him multiple times across each of his cheeks.

Of course, with the cybernetic enhancements that this Sith had received, the blows that she gave to Jacen made it feel as if he had been punched hard by a Wookiee.

When the Sith was done slapping Jacen, she allowed him to collapse to his back, eliciting more pain from the lightwhip strike there. She then placed a boot down on his throat to begin suffocating him as slowly and painfully as possible.

"You know, the more I think about it, Jacen," the Sith said, "I think Allana will make for the better Sith between her and Ben. Yes, I do believe that she will-"

The woman was abruptly cut off once Jacen laid both his hands upon her leg and sent a great surge of Force-lightning into her cybernetics. She seized up and shook uncontrollably as her replacement body parts began to fail on her.

But with great effort, the Sith managed to reach out through the Force and countered Jacen's attack by telekinetically flinging his hands away from her leg. She reeled away from him, with her legs now creaking badly and barely allowing her to walk as she tried to get away from the still-downed Jedi.

"Come... back... here," Jacen croaked as he turned himself to his front and pushed himself back up; from there, he used the Force to retrieve his Corusca gem, placed it into one of his pockets, and began a slow, pained jog to the sounds of the Sith's retreating footsteps. Unfortunately, even with the darkness around him occluding his vision, he still felt dizzy from the hard slaps that she gave him; he even tasted blood as he tried to keep up with her.

Several minutes later, once Jacen had returned to the landing pad where he parked the Solo Quest II, he found the Sith on her hands and knees just meters away from the Jedi's ship. By now, Jacen's vision had more or less returned to normal, though he still felt some mild dizziness from the attacks from earlier.

"Alright then," he said as he approached the Sith. "You... are going... to tell me... where Ben... and Jaina are."

But once he reached out with a hand to grab the Sith's shoulder, her body dissipated into nothingness, just as Jaina, Ben, and Vergere's forms had before. Jacen stiffened in place and he looked around for any clue as to where the actual Sith was.

It wasn't long before he received his answer once the woman's voice reverberated with the echo of a microphone all around him.

She chuckled. "You almost had me there, Jacen. Figures you'd use a dark side technique, just as Vergere said it was okay to do. And just as you used it on Jaina, too. I'm somewhat impressed that you didn't need your Aunt Mara to loan you some of her strength to do it."

"Where are you?" Jacen growled.

"I'm already off the asteroid, Jacen, and I'm currently in orbit of it as we speak. I just wanted to let you know just how hopeless your situation is before you I make sure you die here."

"Let me guess. You're gonna blow up this asteroid, aren't you? Remote detonator, right?"

"Goodbye, Jacen. Of course, if you do make it out, maybe you will be worthy of a rematch." At that, the microphone echoes around Jacen ceased.

And in its place, a series of tremors all throughout the asteroid reverberated beneath his feet. Without hesitation, he hurried over to the Quest, hoping that, in her escape, the Sith didn't have enough time to disable his ship before she took off.

Thankfully, as he used the Force to turn everything in the vessel on before he even sat in the pilot seat, he found that, indeed, his opponent didn't seem to tamper with the Quest at all. And mere seconds after he took his place at the helm, he had his ship up and turning back the way he came as more tremors began to shake the asteroid.

As he navigated with the Force like he did when he entered this place, Jacen's danger-sense alerted him at various points in his departure of falling stalactites that nearly caused an explosive end for the Quest. He slalomed and veered out of the way every few seconds or so for several tense minutes until, finally, the ship sailed out of the asteroid's exit just mere moments before it erupted into its climactic explosion.

At that range, though, the worst that the Quest received was a hard buckling from its rear and a sixty percent drop in its shields that, within a couple of minutes, could be replenished. Once he recovered from the jolt and got his bearings, Jacen checked his ship's sensors to see if the Sith's ship was anywhere in this system. When he found no trace of it, he reached out with his Force-senses.

She was gone; she had no doubt jumped into hyperspace while he was navigating his way out of the now-destroyed asteroid.

With great frustration, Jacen pounded both fists upon his steering column before emitting a shrill shout of anger, fear, and agony; anger for everything he had just went through, fear for those whom the Sith had threatened, and the physical agony that he felt again now that the adrenaline was wearing off in his system.

Now how was he going to find Ben? Or Jaina?

But before Jacen could even think about his parents, Tenel Ka, or Allana, an X-wing dropped out of hyperspace ahead of him. And even before the Quest's comm pinged for his attention, Jacen sensed the presence of Kyp Durron on the other ship, and he didn't seem happy.

Composing himself just enough so that he didn't lash out at the Jedi Master, Jacen answered the comm.

"Jacen," Kyp's voice said sternly, "you've got some explaining to do."

. . .

In the week since the hunt for Ben Skywalker began on Ziost, virtually all twenty of the Bothan mercenaries and all forty of their nek dogs ended up dead. Their bodies littered the cold forest of arched trees around them; their remains were either twisted at unnatural angles or broken off from their bodies from hard rips.

Not cuts; rips.

For in the hunt in which he was supposed to be the prey, young Ben was the predator. And with his Force-powers, enhanced with the all-encompassing, permeating presence of the dark side that pervaded this planet, and fueled by all of the negative feelings—the rage, the grief, the hatred for his cousin Jaina for killing his mother—that had built within him, Ben had killed his hunters in the most brutal fashions imaginable.

Now, toward the end of the hunt in which he was supposed to die, the last two Bothan mercenaries that he had to dispatch each had their backs pinned up against a tree under Ben's Force-grip. He stared at each of them in turn, recognizing them as the mercs who brought him down here in the first place.

"So, guys," Ben said in a trembling, emotionally unstable tone, "did you think that this was how this hunt would go down?"

Before he gave either of them a chance to answer, Ben levitated the merc to his left over to him so that they were face-to-face; now the child saw the same fear on the Bothan's face that he had when this hunt started.

The next thing that Ben did to the merc had him covered in the Bothan's blood and his partner—the one who had pushed the child at the start of the hunt—squealed like a damsel-in-distress in a hokey holodrama.

With the penultimate merc dispatched, Ben let his body flop to the ground before he focused on the last merc.

"Okay, okay, you win, kid, you win!" the still-living Bothan sniveled. "Just let me go and, uh, I, uh, I can even take you home. How does that sound? Does that-"

Ben cut the last merc off as he telekinetically pulled him away from the tree before slamming him right back against it. He then repeated the process, and then he did it again. And again. And again.

Until all that remained of the last merc was just a bloody smear upon the tree and the tattered remains of his clothes, gear, and fur.

And with that, Ben looked to the sky, up to the ship that had transported him from the Home to Ziost, and he screamed until his voice felt hoarse.

When he was done, and he lowered his head down and dropped to his knees, only then did he allow himself to cry since the hunt began.

He didn't know how long he cried before he felt a distinct, inhuman presence approach him. Warily, he stood back up and looked over to the east, where, over the horizon, he saw a dark and round ship approaching his position.

Fear not, a calming masculine voice said into his mind. I come to serve you.

In spite of everything he just went through, Ben couldn't help but feel trusting of the incoming presence. So all he sent back through the Force was, Then get me out of here.

Once the vessel finally arrived and broke through the canopy to settle down next to Ben, the boy took several moments to just look at it. It was unlike any ship that he had seen before, though he did perceive some similarities between this vessel's appearance and that of the holos of some of the Yuuzhan Vong ships his parents had shown him.

At that inadvertent reminder of his mother, Ben felt a surge of renewed grief for her.

Yes, the voice from before said, cutting into Ben's thoughts. You are strong in the Force; and in the dark side, more importantly. You are, indeed, the one who has awakened me from my slumber. What is your name, young one?

"Ben," he said aloud. "Skywalker."

Ben Skywalker. Very well. I grant you access to me.

A section of the strange vessel unfurled itself to make an opening for its interior. Hesitantly, Ben stepped toward the makeshift landing ramp and, after a few seconds, climbed aboard; once he was inside, the ramp closed back in on itself as Ben looked around. He spotted no seats or any console from which he could operate the ship.

Assume a meditative stance in the center, the voice stated. From there, you command me with the Force.

Without saying anything, Ben did as instructed, and then said, "Let's go."

The ship rocketed off to the sky, specifically where the Bothan mercenary ship awaited with its captain and immediate subordinate officers.

"Destroy that ship," Ben commanded angrily.

As you command, Master Skywalker, the voice replied.

Once Ben's strange vessel came into range of the merc ship, the latter opened fire with its turbolaser batteries; Ben didn't even need to tell his ship to commence evasive maneuvers.

After a minute of dodging the giant lasers, Ben's vessel launched a metal projectile from somewhere in itself that soared toward the merc ship. No one aboard the latter seemed to see it coming, as it didn't move from its spot before the ball plowed right through the viewport of its bridge.

Ben's ship then fired off several more metallic projectiles toward the merc ship until, finally, after over a minute and a half, the power core of the Bothans' vessel overloaded and blew it up.

Without further thought for his intended hunters, Ben mentally ordered his new ship to make a jump into hyperspace.

The destination: Shedu Maad.