So, I decided to put up the companion chapter to Chapter Five—I don't necessarily like the whole repeat, but this chap is sort of necessary, without a prequel. I'll try to get the next chapter out really quick.

-

Jaina-Elessar: Thanks! And as for the computer…all's well that ends well, right? Well, supposedly, anyway :P

Of course Zekk is fighting back! Next to Jaina, he's this story's hero ;) The two different personalities, I swear, was total accident :P I actually wanted to avoid that when I started writing this, but…well…everyone seemed to like it, so I didn't bother fixing it :p It's not publishable, so I'm allowed to that, methinks, lol.

------------------

Chapter Six: Monster, Part 2

(Jaina's POV)

I couldn't sleep. After an eternity of restless movement I sat up, pulling back the thin Imperial-issued blanket. Imperial, I thought, my mind hurting. How had my world changed so much? Was it really only five years since I had been part of the New Republic, with two brothers, hope, love, freedom? Perhaps I could survive the whole thing if it weren't for the fact that it was my fault.

I didn't sense Zekk's Jedi potential and so he felt that I didn't think him worthy. Why was I so blind? Of course I had thought him worthy, but my stupidity told me that he knew that. After all, he was my best friend and childhood crush; I was so transparent that Threepio something was up. But I never told Zekk, and because of that he found the Second Imperium. Because of my stupidity, it was easy for Brakiss to turn my best friend into a monster that showed the New Republic no mercy.

Five years since he had left with them. Five years during which I had pleaded with the Force to make the whole awful reality simply a nightmare. Five years for me to be eaten away by the guilt. Guilt for the many Jedi he had killed—numbers that outweighed even those of the Nightsisters' murders. Guilt because he killed Tenel Ka's mother. I should have been able to stop him—I don't know how…but I should have been able to. But I had failed, and now the Empire ruled, the Jedi on the run, and my brothers and friends dead. And now I myself was a prisoner—not only to my guilt, as before, but to the very monster I unwittingly helped create.

Standing and walking, I found myself watching the Darkest Knight slumber. He looked so deceptively innocent when he slept that it was hard to believe he was the Sith Lord who had destroyed so much of my life. His hair, half a shade lighter than black, fell to his shoulders, not contrasting with his skin as it once had. While before he had been as pale as a cooked egg, now he had a subtle tan that added so much to his physical appearance.

His eyes were closed, but I knew their colour better than I knew my own name. As a girl I had gotten lost in them often—green, with a darker corona surrounding his emerald irises. They had always enchanted me so, always told me what he was thinking far better than the Force ever could.

When I had first seen him after he joined the Shadow Academy, a year after he first left, I had been stunned. His eyes, which had always been sparkling with excitement and friendship in my childhood days, were colder than a Hoth night. I shivered now, just thinking about it. The hatred…the anger…the Darkness in his eyes had been so unlike the Zekk I once knew.

Uncle Luke told me that when Zekk gave himself over to Darkness, he had stopped being Zekk and had become the Darkest Knight. He told me that I would never see my friend again, that my friendship would not save him.

But my love? I had asked him stubbornly, desperately. Can't that save him?

Uncle Luke had looked at me with the saddest eyes I had ever seen. Your grandmother couldn't save your grandfather, Jaina, he told me.

You did, I had argued.

Uncle Luke had sighed and I had felt his despair through the Force. Jaina, you need to get past him. The odds are very much against you in this.

I'm Corellian, I'd answered brashly. Odds don't mean anything to me.

Uncle Luke had lectured me sternly about how impulsiveness and arrogance—two faults that I had in abundance, he told me bluntly—were not proper emotions for Jedi. Then he had restricted me to the Jedi Academy so that I wouldn't go after Zekk on what could be a suicidal mission.

That was perhaps the first, and last, argument about Zekk or the Force that I had with my uncle. With my mother, however, it was another matter entirely. She'd never really liked Zekk—he was someone she abided, but she thought he was a bad influence on me. When he joined the Shadow Academy, she pretended to understand but quickly lost patience my lack of acceptance. We argued often, hard and long—first about Zekk, then other things. During the war, our relationship had deteriorated faster than century-old shimmer-silk left outside in Tatooine.

Slowly, now, I shook my head out of the fog that surrounded it. It did not do to dwell on the past, something my master, Mara Jade Skywalker, often told me before she too was killed. You cannot change the past, Jaina, she had often said. And you have already put the present into motion. You can only change the future.

Ze—the Darkest Knight began to toss in his sleep, a frown puckering his brow, his pain evident. Without thinking, I reached out to smooth his brow and send a tendril of Force-comfort to his mind. In an instant he was awake, a snarl on his face. I found myself pushed against the wall, a hand around my neck, cutting off my air supply and damaging my throat. Only when he drew his lightsaber and held it up to sever my head from my body did he seem to realize it was me.

"Solo," he hissed, releasing me. "What were you doing?

I fought to get my breathing back under control without making it too obvious. Sensing that he wouldn't take kindly to being reminded of his nightmare but too ticked off to care, I tossed my hair defiantly and glared up at him. "If you must know, I felt your distress through the Force. You were having a nightmare, and I was trying to calm you. Force knows why—you nearly killed me!"

He stared at me for a long moment. "You're lying."

"What—you don't believe you can have nightmares?"

"You didn't 'feel my distress through the Force,' Solo. What were you really doing?" I set my jaw and received a slap for my defiance. "Do not toy with me, Jedi."

My cheek stinging, I forced the truth that I had not admitted to myself to pass my lips. "A friend once told me that you can see who someone really is in their sleep." Despite my aching throat, I pushed on. "I wanted to see who you were."

He took a step back, his expression reading shock and…alarm? I thought fleetingly of the innocence I had seen while he slept, the hidden pain. Was it still possible after all these years…? After all, I reminded myself, my grandfather returned to the Light after close to a quarter of a century. Who was to say Zekk couldn't come back to me after five years?

"And what, pray tell," he said finally, his voice low and dangerous, "were you hoping to find?"

"What do you think?"

Anger flashed across his face. "You are a fool."

I shrugged and watched him closely as he turned away from me. "Perhaps. But you want to turn me to the Dark Side; isn't that just as—if not more so—stupid?"

His voice became harder than steel and as deadly as a lightsaber. "The Dark Side is more powerful than your Light, Jedi. A fact made obvious by the Empire's success in this war."

"Are you so sure you're winning?" I retorted. "The Empire has lost before."

"And why," he demanded, spinning around to meet my gaze, "would it not?"

"The Empire is a dictatorship," I stated as I walked over to the window that went from a foot and a half above the floor to the ceiling. "The New Republic is—was—a democracy. Perhaps it was not as organized as the Empire, but it is for the people and not the leaders." I didn't look at him as I pushed aside the curtains—black, like everything else in the spacious, tastefully decorated chambers—and leaned against the wall beside the window, my fingers resting gently on the glass as I looked out into the rain. "Eventually, the people will rebel. Brakiss—"

"You would be wise to watch your words," Onyx snapped in interruption. The Emperor commands respect."

"Oh, please," I snapped, still not looking at him, but rolling my eyes in exasperation. "We both know he isn't really the Emperor. He's just Brakiss—a Dark Jedi hiding behind the reputation of a Sith that died nearly a quarter of a century ago."

"He is the Emperor."

"Then why does he need to claim to be 'Emperor Palpatine' and not 'Emperor Brakiss'?" I demanded hotly, finally turning to him. "He's nothing but a phoney."

He had his hand around my bruised throat before I could think. "Should you ever feel the need to spout such treachery again, then consider how painful I can make your death."

He continued to squeeze my throat, and blackness began to creep around the edges of my vision, my body going limp. I tried to force his name past my lips but couldn't, and instead pleaded with him with my eyes. His eyes connected with mine and he released his hold on my neck, letting me fall to the ground, gasping for breath and nearly crying from the pain.

He stood there for a moment with me at his feet, staring down at me. When he finally spoke it was with an oddly hoarse voice. "Let that be a lesson to you, Jedi Knight Solo. You mean nothing to me; I care only for the Empire and my master. Do not test my loyalty."

Loyalty…or fear? I wondered, but kept my mouth shut. If he tried to choke me once more he wouldn't need to hold on for long before he simply crushed my throat.

The Darkest Knight stomped away, and I attempted to regain my composure. I stayed where I was, unable to move, and shaking from the encounter. Was there anything left of Zekk under that hateful monster? There had to be, but how could I get through to him?

An hour later, my composure was somewhat restored, though I doubted I would be doing much talking, drinking or eating anytime soon. I slowly stood, then glanced out the window at Coruscant.

Coruscant was so large, with billions of beings, the most populated world in the galaxy, making the highest percentage of the galaxy's beings on one world. And already the billions were down to perhaps hundreds millions.

Because of the Sith.

Because of the Empire.

Because of the Darkest Knight.

Because of me.

A tear slipped down my cheek but I didn't catch it. Instead, I closed my eyes and found my centre in the Force. I would need it in the many days, months, perhaps years, that I would be a prisoner to the monster I had helped create.

I crawled into my cot and curled up. Silently, I let the tears come.

(End of Jaina's POV)

-------------

Short, I know—sorry. Another post is coming.

Please R&R!

-Tjz