Force Dyad

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A/N-thank you very much to everyone who kindly read and reviewed the last chapter.

Chapter Thirty-Two-Lies and False Promises

Ben's tall figure was a dark silhouette against the smouldering ruins of the jedi temple as he waited for his uncle to reach him. The fire had taken what was alive and sacred and cast it as confetti into the sky, first glowing red before cooling to black. The very air was pungent with the odour of the recently deceased, the crumbling stones of the magnificent temple lay ash-like on the ground, a cold dust over every blade of grass and leaf. There it would stay until the wind carried it away and the rain washed every little thing clean. For now, it remained, the recent carnage on full display as Skywalker roamed blindly through the ruins, his mouth moving, his eyes gaping wide in silent horror, with his faithful droid R2 following slowly behind him.

Apathy washed over Ben like heavy water, holding him in place. As he witnessed Skywalker's emotional breakdown, he felt nothing. He was trying, God knows he was trying, but he couldn't feel a damn thing.

Ben compared the feeling to being under water, and you close your eyes. Everything in the world suddenly ceases to exist somehow. The only thing you hear is the beating of your heart and the thoughts on your mind, and if you don't reach the surface, you start to feel your lungs craving for oxygen, burning because you can't breathe.

That's how it felt like losing Rey. He was only left with the echoes of her sweet voice in his mind, the sound of it making it hard to breathe. She was gone. Nothing else mattered anymore. Not the dead students. Not the intense grief being displayed by his uncle at the loss of everything he had built lying in ruins around him. Nothing would matter to him ever again.

All that Ben felt was the dull beating of his heart; nothing less, nothing more.


When Skywalker's hostile gaze finally met his nephew's, Ben showed nothing but indifference. Behind his uncle's icy stare was a mountain of pain and self-blame, yet extracting it would bring pain and instability. Either it would be born and his soul reborn, or he would lash out and it would be forever over.

The latter turned out to be true.

Skywalker didn't hesitate, lost in his grief, he ignited his lightsaber as he lashed out at the one person he considered responsible for the massacre. The plasma blade of his weapon hummed, casting a sickly glow over his face as he charged toward Ben, screaming at the top of his lungs. "Why?"


Ben showed no reaction and made no move to defend himself as he watched Skywalker raise his blade to cut him down where he stood. He was numb, the darkness colouring his vision like a void. A dark void. A never-ending dark void that consumed everything, so he was left feeling nothing. Empty. Nothing to subside his hollow soul that hid in the shadows, away from any other human life because its emptiness was so consuming it cannot bare to pretend that everything is okay.

The death blow never came. Skywalker's grief-stricken roar filled Ben's ears as his uncle cast his weapon to the ground and sank onto his knees, mumbling over and over. "Why? Why did you do it?"

Skywalker's words bounced off Ben like rain from concrete. He looked down at his uncle with empty eyes, devoid of life. "You are to blame for this. Not me. I warned you. Over and over, I warned you, but your blind arrogance refused to let you see what was happening right in front of you. And now all your dead students have paid the price for your conceit. Rey paid the price…" His hoarse voice cracked at the end when he said her name, the first sign of emotion slipping through.

"Rey?" Luke rasped, his eyes narrowing in contempt as he slowly rose back onto his feet. "You hurt her, didn't you? Did she get in the way of your grand plan to destroy everything that mattered to me? Why didn't you come after me? Just me!"

"Don't you dare say her name!" Ben thundered. His apathy began to disintegrate under the weight of his uncle's horrific accusations. That's when his anger spiralled, unleashed without thought of consequence. He reached for his weapon, igniting his saber in one fluid movement. He brought it down hard in his uncle's direction. Skywalker barely had time to dodge the furious strike as he called his own saber into his hand.


The two of them had been fighting for a solid hour, still with neither victorious. Ben's tousled hair clung to his hot skin in sweaty tendrils, his skin glistened with perspiration like he had been caught in a sudden rainstorm. In the haze of the approaching dawn, he could feel his shirt starting to cling to his back in places and there was a slight sting to his eyes as he continued to try and bury his grief with aggression.

Time ticked by as time does, neither accelerating nor flinching, for the allotted moment when combat would end in one of their deaths was surely approaching. Sunrise came as a golden tunnel to a world that for Ben would forever be bathed in darkness. Igniting the world anew with such brilliance, the sun rose with casual elegance, a sore reminder to Ben of what he had lost. Rey was his light. Unlike the sun, her brilliance would shine no more. She was lost to him for eternity and the exhausted and bitter old man in front of him was responsible. Ben renewed his attack, pressing Skywalker further and further back with each calculated strike of his saber.


So lost in combat, the Verity was able to land, without either man being aware of the starship's arrival. Returning from an off-world mission, Tai and Hennix were confronted with the brutal scene of the temple's destruction and the demise of their fellow students. Tai was forced to hold Hennix up as his companion collapsed under the weight of his distress.

In the distance Tai became aware of the flash of green and blue sparks as Ben and Skywalker fought under the early morning sunlight. His eyes widened in shock at seeing Ben again after so long, only to find him fighting with his master. It was clear that Skywalker was weakening. Ben was pressing his advantage, determined to exact his revenge on the man he held responsible for his misery.

"Pull yourself together, Hennix." Tai said thickly as he shook the Quarren none too gently. "We need to help Master Skywalker."

Hennix stood up on unsteady legs. He tugged agitatedly on the end of the long tentacles hanging from his face as he tried to compose himself. "Why, Tai?" He pleaded, knowing that Tai was in the dark about what had happened just like he was.

"We'll focus on why later." Tai muttered as he drew his saber and ignited it. "Right now, Master Skywalker is in need of our assistance."


Sunlight painted Ben's lips red and hair ebony; it played over his pale face, alighting softly on his skin. Sunlight showed the glimmer of tears in his dark eyes, revealing the pent-up misery he held inside. As soon as Tai and Hennix revealed themselves he knew he was outnumbered. His desolate gaze landed on his former friend, strangely finding compassion in Tai's eyes where he thought none would be forthcoming. He didn't have time to ponder or question it as he was forced to withdraw.

As he departed in Grimtaash, nothing but a shell of the man he once was, Ben felt like his heart was being ripped from his chest. His grief was absolute, his old self burned clear away and the new self stepping up to take his place. The transformation hurt, that it came at a huge cost to his sanity didn't matter. If he wanted to survive long enough to wreak his vengeance, then he needed to bury everything that once made him Ben Solo.

"My boy!" Snoke's treacherous voice crooned inside his head, encouraging him along. "Now is the time to take on a new mantle, young Solo. Become my new apprentice. Learn to use the dark side of the Force and you will become more powerful than you ever imagined. Only then will you be able to fulfil your potential and achieve your deepest desire…."

"What do you mean?" Ben demanded. "What could you possibly offer me that would make my servitude to one such as you worthwhile?"

"The dark side of the Force is a pathway to many abilities some consider to be unnatural. There was once a Sith Lord so powerful and so wise, he could use the Force to influence the midi-chlorians to create... life."

"Life?" Ben's grief over Rey was all consuming as Snoke cruelly dangled a sliver of hope in front of him. "Is it possible to learn this power?"

"If we work together, I know we can discover the secret." Snoke promised.

Ben closed his eyes in defeat, his exhaustion overwhelming. "I pledge myself…to your teachings." He said dully. He would do anything for the slight chance that Rey could be brought back to him. He had to believe that Snoke was telling the truth, otherwise he would lose the last grip on his sanity altogether.

"Good. Good…the Force is strong with you, young Solo. Come to me and fulfil your destiny."


Nightfall came with a whisper of perfect black that grew into a comforting chorus of stars. "How could a place be so full and empty at the same time?" Tai wondered as he looked with grief-stricken eyes at the mass graves in front of him, the freshly turned earth a stark reminder of the many young lives so cruelly cut short in such a tragic way.

Along with Skywalker and Hennix, he had toiled all day, gathering the burned and broken bodies of the other students and burying them. Tai continued to stand in front of the graves as the moon shone its bright light down on him, a living, breathing being, his life stretching out before him, unlike those now resting in the cold ground. Tai bowed his head and closed his eyes in silent prayer.

Despite Skywalker's assertion that Ben had been behind the massacre, Tai wouldn't let himself believe it. He had been closer to Solo than anyone else at the temple, he felt he understood him in ways the others, including Skywalker, could not. He knew how devoted Ben was to Rey, there was no way he would let her come to any harm. It just didn't make sense to Tai, that his friend would dare risk her safety for some grand scheme of revenge. He opened his eyes again and breathed in the night air, trying to compose himself, there was nothing he could do for the dead, he had to concentrate on the living now. Tai paid his last respects to his fallen comrades and finally left to join the others.


When Tai caught up with them, he found Skywalker and Hennix in the midst of transporting the only two survivors onto the Verity. It had been by sheer luck they had heard Voe's guttural moan of pain, coming from underneath a mound of rubble near the ruined dormitory where the young padawans used to sleep. Working together under Skywalker's guidance, the three of them used the Force to lift the heavy piles of masonry, revealing the fallen bodies of the two girls lying beneath.

Rey was in a worse condition than Voe, she was barely clinging to life, her pulse so faint that they worried that she was too badly injured to survive many more hours if they didn't get her urgent treatment. Voe, on the other hand, was improving quickly, she remained unconsciousness, but her prospects were much better than Rey's.

"Would you like me to carry her, Master Skywalker?" Tai asked the exhausted jedi master.

"I'm fine, Tai." Skywalker said wearily. His face was haggard, he seemed to have aged twenty years in one night. "I'll take care of her." He looked down at Rey's ashen face. Her eyes were closed, myriad cuts and bruises littering her pale skin. "Poor child." He murmured. "You didn't deserve any of this. You're safe now."

Tai expelled a shuddering breath as he, too, looked down at Rey's limp form. "What are we going to tell her about Ben?" He asked anxiously.

Skywalker's blue eyes hardened. "We'll tell her he's dead."

"Master Skywalker?" Tai protested in alarm. "You don't mean that!"

"I do. The young man who committed that appalling atrocity is not my nephew. The moment he committed that vile act he was dead to me. How do you think Rey would feel knowing the truth about him? Its best she believes that the boy she trusted still had good in him, that he died along with the others in the fire."

"But…?"

"I have made my decision." Skywalker cut in harshly before Tai could protest any further. "There will only be five people who will know that Ben Solo has fallen to the dark side. That consists of you, me, Hennix and Ben's parents." His eyes closed briefly in despair at the forthcoming painful conversation he was going to have with his beloved twin and her husband. The news was going to devastate them. "Please don't press me further on this issue, Tai. I am not going to change my mind. Do I have your promise that you won't raise this subject again?"

"Yes, Master Skywalker." Tai promised reluctantly.

A/N-thanks for reading! Please review.