Chapter One
If you had the power to go back in time, how much would you sacrifice to save the one you love?
How many mistakes would you correct?
How many would you create?
Floods of torment unfathomable shot down his core, making each muscle in his body contract as though he'd got stunned with one billion volts of power.
Pain struck his body like a snake sharing its venom from Rey's lightsaber.
His back curved up at an unnatural edge with arms and legs that shaken each minute as he flew across the dark cave and fell.
He couldn't breathe. The last thing he saw was her smile.
Ben opened his eyes.
He was back home, meditating along his mother, clarifying precisely how he had been having these torments lately and how he couldn't sleep. At the moment that followed, everything went dark. Ben was conscious, yet dimly. What seemed like an eternity inside a pitch-black void soon concluded. It was hot. Not the first thing Ben would have felt after having a nightmare, but that would do. A thick fog covered his surroundings, but at least his senses were awakening.
Good, wait.
It was not a fog that the young Solo was seeing. He couldn't see through the light as it blurred everything, yet he felt this unpleasant heat over his skin again as his eyes cleared. The object of Ben's discomfort was now before him. A thin green light hovered over him and a man stared back at him with dark eyes.
Wait a minute. He knew this sensation, didn't he? No, he did. It's a lightsaber, Ben yelled in his mind.
Straightway, Ben rollovered to avoid contact and dropped on his back out of the tent into hard soil. Ben remembered going to Ahch-To to train with Luke Skywalker, his uncle. The first thought that came was that the man inside the tent wasn't his uncle, maybe he was dreaming, but all the evidence pointed to the contrary. The old man with long crazy hair with a beard in the tent was his master, Luke Skywalker.
Luke was weeping.
"It was a moment of weakness." He whispered, falling on his knees.
Ben got up. He couldn't believe what he was seeing. His uncle, Luke Skywalker, was standing in front of him. Or better put, Ben was standing before someone who tried to kill him.
"I'm so sorry." Luke continued, "Ben, I don't know what came to me-"
Ben couldn't answer. He couldn't believe it. He had barely died saving Rey. He had reunited with his mother. But now he was in the past.
He heard multiple voices from above a staircase to his right that lead to the enormous Jedi Temple on the back. He didn't know what happened, but something went through his body and his legs started moving on their own, and sooner rather than later Ben ran into the trees behind him.
"Ben! Ben!" He heard his uncle's words, filled with pain and honesty.
Yet Ben feared for his life and continued to run until his words were so far away and he couldn't breathe properly.
What's happening? This is crazy, Ben thought.
Ben saw the stars above him as he made his way deeper into the forest. He looked down and saw that he was wearing Jedi robes. This wasn't a dream. But why would his uncle try to kill him in the first place? It was no dream. It couldn't be. Ben's hands wouldn't stop shaking. He had already betrayed Luke and the location to Snoke in this timeline. Running within the thickness of the forest, he cut himself with every branch and leaf in the way. Ben checked his waist.
I left my lightsaber in the tent. What do I do? He continued to hustle until his legs gave up and placed his back against a tree, dropped, and rested.
They can't find me. It's impossible, he assured himself. But even he knew how bad of a lie that was. Even so, the padawans wouldn't be able to find him at the very least. Ben focused as his muscles relaxed and his heartbeat went back to normal. The stars shine exactly like home, and for a moment Ben thought his eyes were not his own. He felt something strange, an odd sensation. Something was pulling him, calling out to him, something was trying to find him. Weirdly, Ben felt pleased by the presence. Ben smiled again, something that he hasn't done since he left his parents to train with his uncle in the arts of the Jedi. Ben hasn't seen his parents in five years and the thought he could go back home put a smile on his face and made him tear me up a bit. Ben cleaned his face and empty his mind.
After a deep breath, Ben had based everything he had seen so far as the work of the force in the past. But not this time. These were nothing more than visions of a puppet, Snoke. Or rather, Palpatine himself.
"Luke Skywalker tried to kill you," the ominous voice whispered in his ear, "yet you sit here and cry like a girl."
Instantly jumping around, Ben looked at the empty area in the woods, but there was no one in sight. Then he heard a deep ominous laugh. Ben kept looking around but saw no one. The woods were clear as his mind.
Ben's only focus was that voice as a strong headache came each time Snoke's voice tried to reach him over the past few months.
"Who are you?" Ben shouted a lie as his body shook anew.
"How far has the mighty grandson of Darth Vader fallen," the voice continued, "aren't you, his rightful heir?" The voice again said.
The voice was inside his mind. Ben immediately used his training from his past timeline to block his thoughts.
"Snoke?" Ben asked with false curiosity.
"Who else?" Ben's thoughts were not his own, and that was bad.
This dark side user that calls himself Snoke was speaking to him through the force again. Palpatine. If it was connecting them, he could read his mind, and that wasn't good. Not one bit. This wasn't the first time he tried to contact him and sell him this story about Darth Vader being his grandfather. Ben never told Luke about this, but Ben thought that maybe it was time he did. Hopefully, Palpatine couldn't read his mind.
There was a lasting period of silence as Ben waited for the next headache, but it didn't come.
"Hello?" Ben tried to reach out to him, but everything remained silent. No matter how many times Ben talked out loud to him, Snoke or rather Palpatine didn't answer. It was as if he vanished as swiftly as he came.
Assuming the worst, Ben thought Snoke knew where they were and broke the connection between them. Something he couldn't do the last three times he tried to contact him. Ben wasn't sure what Luke would do if I went back there.
Did Luke really try to kill me? Or was this another of Palpatine's visions? He asked himself.
Ben was too afraid to go back there and pretend that nothing happened.
I have to run, run as far away as possible. But me being me, I will probably get a shitty job like my old man, get old, and die somewhere in the middle of nowhere. I could work as a bounty hunter at the very least. Who am I kidding? I don't have the strength or the training to take on a full on Jedi. Wait. Did Palpatine now know the location of his granddaughter? I was only seventeen years old the day I turned to the dark side. How old was Rey now? I have to get a ship to Jakku and save her.
An explosion erupted in the distance near the temple's location. Ben thought about the location where the other Padawan's tents were located. Multiple spaceships descend from the atmosphere and explosions detonate in the distance.
"I'm so going to regret this," Ben said, astonished by the front row line and run with clench teeth towards the village wrapped in fear. He had to warn Luke about Palpatine and the possibility that this dark side of the force user could have contacted other students and we're going to betray his uncle. Maybe even attack his uncle from behind.
If I am here, then it's because I am supposed to change something. Please let me change this one tragedy. They don't have to die.
Through fire and thorns, Ben kept running, no matter how afraid he was.
I can't stand by and let them die. I can't live with that. Not again. My soul has already been torn apart.
Upon exiting the woods, Ben saw the place lit in fire as Luke ran up the stairs to the temple. Ben put off the fire in his robes near the shoulder and followed Luke. He came to a sudden stop near the stone staircase and looked back. Stormtroopers marched out of one spaceship that had landed. At the top of the staircase, a group of people wearing dark armor clothes and helmets blocked his way to the temple. Kylo Ren's former bodyguards were in front of him. Those who usurped Snoke's rule as Supreme Leader. Those who served the original Ren until Ben joined their ranks as Kylo Ren. Nor Jedi. Nor Sith. Yet, they were dark side users. Ben swallowed hard in fear that this was probably the end for him.
"Solo. Are you Ben Solo?" said the one in the middle. Before long, it rained, and the fires were going out one by one.
Ben assumed this one to be the leader as the others formed a line behind him. He nodded in response to his claims as the black armor soldier came down the stairs towards him. He got this sense that this was just the calm before the storm.
"The Supreme Leader of the First Order requests an audience with you-" One of the Fighter ships in the distance in front of the temple fell into the forest creating an explosion.
He made it, Ben thought, I doubt any of the other students had that level of power, which means Luke got the students out of the temple.
The leader of these warlocks in front of him waved his hand to the others to go into the forest as the Stormtroopers climbed the stairs to the temple behind him. Two of the Stormtroopers stood behind Ben.
If this were the Knights of Ren, who was their leader? They knew about Palpatine, and their loyalty lay with him. I need to know more.
"You will never catch him." Ben objected.
"Don't worry, he will come to us." He proposed instantly with a dense voice.
"He probably escaped the planet already. He won't come back." Ben affirmed with a mental note that Luke likely took the other students to safety, or so he hoped.
"It will. For you." He responded, balancing a metal axe with a red light coming from the corners of the edge in front of Ben's face.
"He won't." Ben let a slight smile escape.
The warrior walked down slowly closer to Ben, trying to intimidate him without uttering a word.
Luke probably feels guilty about what happened. This guy was right, Luke is going to return, but I hope that isn't the case. Uncle, you need to take the other students out of this planet. Don't come back for me.
The man behind the mask nodded to the Stormtroopers behind Ben and they grabbed him by the arms and took him down the stairs to the spaceship, albeit a brief explosion sent all of them flying. Ben fell disorientated to the ground.
It hurts, dammit, just like that time, Ben complained, I already knew the risks, my uncle did too. My uncle had an escape plan in case something like this happened. Even as a Jedi Master, I don't believe my uncle could take on an entire legion of starfighters without getting hurt and putting everyone else in danger. I am such a liability to him.
Ben slowly crawled, blind and deaf by the explosion as all the Stormtroopers lay down around him on the floor. The Stormtroopers white armor gave away their location, and with none around, Ben safely crawled into the forest. The Stormtroopers wear an ancient design made by the Empire, a design that even someone disorientated could still spot.
Ben stood up from the ground only to fall. He had been too close to the initial blast. He slumped on his back and placed his hand under his robes, checking for the source of the pain. As he retrieved his hand, he saw blood. A piece of metal had pierced through the upper part of his hips. Ben continued to crawl, losing momentum until he blacked out.