Behind Kylo a bright orange glow sprang up. He wheeled around to see the door opening, the room beyond smoking and pulsing with fiery light. From the fog emerged a tall shape. Its silhouetted features were obscured by a long cape, its head a bell-shaped shroud.

Kylo Ren knew the shape well, for he had seen it in holocrons throughout his life. He tried to take a step towards the figure, but he found himself paralyzed by fear.

Abruptly the breathing sound that filled the hall stopped. The figure raised his hands and pulled back what evidently was only a hood. Kylo was about to react with irritation when the figure stepped close enough for him to see. He looked vaguely familiar, with his long wavy hair and rounded chin. A thin scar ran over the right side of his face. But his eyes were dark, and not entirely pleased to see him.

"You don't recognize me," the man said. It wasn't a question. "Not like the others. But you know."

"How is it possible," the boy whispered. You're so... so young."

"Another talent of joining the Force. Even Master Yoda could make himself appear younger if he wished, though I imagine he'd have to go rather far back before we noticed a difference," he grinned darkly.

"But why have you appeared before me in this way?" Ren took a knee before his grandfather. "Surely you know my devotion to your cause Lord V-"

"Do not prostrate yourself before me and call be by that name Ben Solo."

The glow behind the elder Skywalker intensified and a wave of heat surged up the corridor.

"Darth Vader was an old man, defeated by Luke Skywalker in the Galaxy's most desperate hour. I am not he. My life and my body were taken from me by the Dark Side."

"But the Emperor restored your life, made you stronger!"

"A lie!" Anakin bellowed, and behind him flames erupted from the glowing doorway. "Sidious did nothing but feed me lies. I was fated to be the strongest in the Galaxy, until my Master paid me one final courtesy and denied the Empire that strength. The Dark Side has no ability to restore, to heal, to comfort. Do you think the likes of Sidious and Snoke became one with the Force when they died? The Sith craved eternal life because the Dark Side offered them [I]nothing[I] in death."

The figure became wreathed in fire as it crept ever closer, but he did not react to it.

"Is that why you let him kill the Emperor?" Ren asked meekly. "He lied to you just as Snoke lied to me."

"Perhaps you should reevaluate just how many lies he told you. I killed Darth Sidious, and I did it of my own volition. Luke only supplied the spark."

"And I killed Snoke of my own accord as well! We are the same!"

"We are not the same! You are me, but with the privilege of knowing my future. But still you ignore it. Perhaps you need to feel, before you will see."

The flames wrapped around Kylo Ren's body, singing his nightclothes and sending sharp pain down into his bones. He screamed and fell to the ground, Anakin looking down at him. As the smoke overcame him he blacked out...

...When his eyes opened again, the breathing had fell to a dull rhythm masked by a low ring in his ears. He was lying on a table. The world beyond him was clouded over, but he could make out two shapes standing over him.

A commanding female voice came from the first shape. "The tissue is rejecting the implants, it will take another two days to get the required parts."

The second shape leaned a little farther over the table. "We can only hope that he pulls through long enough for the procedure to finish."

"Sir, you have the authority to... end it, if you wish it so." The first voice did not waver.

"Oh my, Captain," the second voice oozed. "I wouldn't so callously throw away a life."

"We both know that before the accident you would have gladly taken this opportunity."

"Before the accident I assumed that death was the worst possible scenario," the second voice said simply. "I was proven incorrect."

The two voices grew softer as their owners evidently left the room.

"My body, I can't feel anything?"

"Quite the Contrary," Skywalker's voice manifested in his ear. "Every cell in your body is laced with the most acute pain ever devised. Perhaps you can't feel it now. But one day you'll shift your weight just so, and once you realize it's there? You'll never feel anything else again."

With a hiss the pressure on his temples increased and he could see clearly. It felt like his old mask, but tighter. Now the form of Anakin Skywalker could be seen leaning over him. He grabbed a nearby Droid and turned its screen to Kylo so that the boy could see it. His pupils narrowed in shock as he looked at what he saw. All over his body was mottled with the red and black of deep burns. Tubes and instruments snaked over and [I]through[I] his body, bracing various covers and patches to his skin.

"What, what is? Oh no, no no no!"

The droids began flashing and the tools in the operating suite rattled in their trays as he strained against his manacles. He screamed in panic, blind to everything but his terror, until finally the restraints snapped and he lurched onto his feet.

"You are strong," Anakin said. "To resist me, your emotions must be running wild."

"I don't want to continue," his voice crackled from inside the mask. "Take me back."

"Oh, but you are already here," his grandfather moved to place himself between Ben and the door. "This is the future of all who give themselves to the Dark. It's already given you one scar. How many more will you get before you can't hold it together?"

Kylo Ren reached out and felt his lightsaber fly from a nearby table to his hand. He ignited it. "Take me back!"

Anakin reached inside his black robe and pulled out the lightsaber Kylo had so long sought after.

"Very well. I will release you from your pain the only way I know how."

Kylo lunged forward and swung at his grandfather, but the weight of his prosthetics held him back. He flipped over a table in front of Anakin and then made a run for the door. He almost made it before a blue blade crossed in front of his red one.

"We're not finished yet."

With a Force Push of his own Skywalker sent Solo careening into the hall. "Fight. You are the heir apparent of Vader aren't you? Master of the Dark Side? Then stand and fight!"

A thin crescent of moon hung over the space port as their clash sent flashes of purple through the windows of the Finalizer.

The Jedi advanced aggressively, slashing at the tubes of bacta on Kylo's suit as he backed the Supreme Leader of the First Order back to the towering glass wall.

"Do you want this to be your future? Do you?"

"Ngaaah! I don't! I don't!"

Anakin Skywalker's eyes blazed as a spiderweb of cracks crisscrossed the window.

"These are the first steps."

With a horrid crack and a rush of air, Kylo Ren felt nothing more.