Luxury 5000 Yacht Rook, Unknown Location Transitory Mists; 44 ABY
The preparation was short and uneventful. In no time, Ben and Vestara were lying on the overstuffed beds in the medical facilities onboard and talking to the resident Emdee droid. "Now, make sure you replace the IV bags as needed," Ben was saying as he rolled up his sleeve. By some miraculous stroke of luck, his cheeks had not yet split, though the itching had forced him to apply a numbing cream. One good thing about going to Beyond Shadows would be not having to deal with that. Vestara was already lying down, the IV inserted into her normal arm. They were ready.
A few chants of the key phrase, and they felt their feet lift from the table. Time ceased, their awareness of it at least. Minutes or hours, days or years, it didn't matter. Having both been here before, they knew they had landed in the Lake of Apparitions. Everything was connected here, so they were not unduly upset. Travel to the Pool was a short one, or was it long? Without a basis of time reference, it was so easy to get confused.
Vestara was disheartened to find that she looked much the same here as she had in the 'real world,' as she liked to think of it. There was something in her that had prayed that when they'd gotten to this realm of spirits that she'd look like she was supposed to. Such thoughts, of course, were carefully hidden from Ben, she didn't need his pity. She knew he didn't see it that way, but she had no other way to imagine anyone seeing her as she was now. If she was to look like this forever, then she may as well try to get used to it.
Oblivious to the internal thoughts of his companion, Ben slowly floated in the direction he knew the Pool of Knowledge, at least on this plane, was located. "Come on, Ves, we need to make this quick."
When they reached the Pool, they were shocked. The white marble lining, so similar to what they'd actually touched in person, was splintered and cracked. The water was missing, drained through the split in the bottom. The transparent cavern walls wavered, clearly dying. Something bad had happened here, something powerful.
"Could this be what she did?" Vestara asked.
"Maybe," Ben paused, "or she did this to hide what she changed, so we wouldn't be able to see."
They looked back to the Lake, it seemed unharmed. "What else could she have done? We need to see the extent of the damage."
Ben had a sallow wave wash over him at that thought, but pushed it aside. Vestara was right. "Yes, I think we should. Why don't we split up to cover everything faster. The sooner we find out what we need to, the sooner we can get out of here."
They decided to take the two sites they knew about, as they would be the only ones they could determine whether or not they had been damaged. Ben opted to visit the Font of Power, no doubt not completely trusting Vestara to resist another drink, as she had gotten them to drink the first time. Who knew what a second time would do? So, without too much reluctance, Vestara got to investigate the Lake of Apparitions. It was here, that she strode along the thin safe path through the faces. Most of the ones she saw were vaguely familiar. She saw the lavender face of Ahri Raas and felt a pang of regret. Unwilling to give the ghostly face a chance to see her, she hurried away, only to stop short when she heard a cold voice call out.
"So, the harlot returns." The voice was much older than Raas had been, dripping with loathing and hate.
Following the sound, Vestara found herself looking down upon the malevolent face of Sarasu Taalon, eyes blazing an orange glow. "High Lord Taalon," she said, her voice dead and emotionless. She had never thought she'd have to face him, her fall because of his failure, her loyalty to the Tribe. Yet now, she was just like he had been, wasn't she? Changed into something new. She'd killed him for that, but she neither had the inclination nor the resolved to do the same to herself or Ben.
"How things change," Taalon sneered, "the shell now shows the traitorous charlatan within."
She tried and failed to repress the cringe she felt at the words. "I did what I had to, you were no longer loyal to the Tribe."
"And you are? Siding with the Jedi, betraying your own kind, you are a disgrace Vestara Khai! A common whore to Skywalker's spawn," Taalon spat. "And now you become the same thing you murdered me for? How ironic!"
Knowing she would only get more abuse, Vestara turned away, she certainly didn't have a good answer to any of the High Lord's allegations. The Keshiri Sith shouted at her retreating form, unable to follow. When Taalon's voice was a distant murmur, Vestara heard another voice, this one far from the melodious scorn in the distance. This voice was silken and smooth, but grating at the same time.
"Vestara Khai, come to me."
She found herself wandering over into a darkened area of the Lake. These pools of liquid held the faces she knew from her history lessons and the past the Tribe uncovered after Ship found them. All these cells were degraded and rancid, as if the being within poisoned the water. She passed a balding muscled man covered in orbalisks, a woman with her face wrapped in a triangular headdress, a tattooed Zabrak in red and black. They were Sith Lords, ones from the past, trapped forever in torment for what they did in life. Perdition for the damned.
She came upon the one that had called out to her and faltered. The water was a murky black, the edges cracked and crumbling. She knew before she saw the face that someone truly evil resided within. Yellow orbs shone through the black. The face that faded into visual existence was horribly disfigured, melted and furrowed. Vestara knew who it was, even the most uninformed being knew the face of the Galactic Emperor, Palpatine.
"Come closer, child," he rasped, golden eyes taking on a compassionate twist. "You have come a long way, young one, and can go so far. If you let me help you."
Vestara narrowed her eyes, did this fool really think he could talk her into anything? She was raised a Sith. "And why would you do that? The goodness of your heart? You seem to keep strange company if that's the case."
"Did I say my reasons were altruistic?" Palpatine said it as if he'd known exactly what she'd say, not a moment or pause to collect his response. "I have many reasons behind my intent, not the least of which what you will do for me, child."
Vestara snorted. "And what would that be?"
"You'll set me free."
"Any particular reason?"
"Because of the other reasons, because I will help you."
Vestara had enough, she moved to walk away. Palpatine may have been powerful in his time, but senility had obviously set in—
"You know Skywalker will abandon you." That made her stop. She'd underestimated the Sith. Far more than Taalon ever could, Palpatine had laid a bony finger on the most tender spot in her soul and twisted. "How could it end any other way, my child? You already foresee this."
"That's not true," she hissed, unconsciously turning back.
"Isn't it? You don't need me to tell you what you already suspect. Beauty is such a fickle thing, so fleeting, but power is lasting."
Now it was Vestara's turn to sneer, to jab her own swipe at the Dark Lord. "What would you know about sacrificing your looks?"
"Do you think I always looked like this?" The hood fell away and the wrinkles smoothed and flattened. A doughy grandfather-like face smiled up at her. "The great always sacrifice themselves for their destiny, as you already have. All that remains is to embrace what you have gained from your loss."
"You're wrong about Ben," Vestara insisted, she hadn't even realized she was kneeling at the edge of the water.
"Do you not think he could hide his thoughts from you? Are your own thoughts so open to his mind?"
Vestara hadn't thought about that. She'd hidden some of her more recent thoughts from him, could he be doing the same? What if he really did find her hideous, but bound by honor to stay with her? All the while despising her, wishing that she was the same beautiful girl he'd fallen for.
"But it doesn't have the be that way," Palpatine continued, having paused just long enough to start the train of thought, but not allowing it to reach any real destination. "You can make up for it in power, you can have his affections though that, you just need a guide."
"And . . . that would be you?" Vestara couldn't believe she was even considering it, told herself she really wasn't, that she shouldn't even be here. His voice was just so understanding, so sincere.
"Of course, I've trained so very many, the boy's mother among them."
"Mara Jade . . . "
"And look at the life she had with his father, I could give you that, if you only let me out." A soft, pale hand reached from below the water's level, out to Vestara. "Take my hand and claim your love for your own."
After a moment of hesitation, Vestara lightly reached out to him. She was just centimeters away when she heard the call.
"Ves? Ves!" Ben shouted when he saw her leaning over the small pool with the hand coming out. "What are you doing?"
The words snapped the spell, Vestara looked down at Palpatine's face and couldn't understand how she'd come so close to actually listening to him. She started to move her hand back. "No."
The grandfatherly face contorted in rage and melted to the Emperor's visage. "I will not be denied," he growled, somehow more restrained than Taalon had been, but far more malevolent. His hand, now skeletal and emaciated, lunged and grabbed her wrist in a flash. Iron chains broke the water surface and needle-like hooks latched onto what little flesh he had, pulling him back, with Vestara in tow. "Release me, or you shall join me, child."
Ben had just made it to Vestara in the time it took for the hand to snatch her. When he saw who was in the water, he couldn't help but recoil.
"Free me, Son of Skywalker, or your love will share my fate." Palpatine said it, as if the hooks meant nothing to him, maybe they didn't. Nothing bled from the holes, but it made the Embrace of Pain look childish by comparison.
Ben scrambled to Vestara's hand. With no anchor to grip, they were leaning in. He tried to pry the Emperor's fingers off his girlfriend, but they were in a death-grip. With no other option, with the chains pulling them in, both Vestara and Ben tugged backwards, pulling the grinning Sith Lord up with them. Six loud cracks echoed in the expanse, the second time in recent history of the gates to Chaos being violated.
Breathing heavily, chunks of tissue ripped away by the chains, Palpatine was huddled over in a wet mass of flowing robes. Having fallen the other direction, Ben and Vestara watched as he slowly rose to his feet. Eyes closed, the Sith flexed his fingers. "I have waited years for this, freedom. Free to wrought vengeance on those who sentenced me to this prison," Palpatine's eyes flashed open, ochre halos burning within, and his hands clawed into talons. "I think I'll start with his son."
Bluish-purple electricity cackled, not unlike that summoned by Vestara herself, to life. Ben reacted first and telekinetically shoved them back before the lightning struck. The solid ground gave a crumbling sound and fell away into the Depths of Eternity.
Jumping to their feet, Ben and Vestara looked at one another and then back to Palpatine, practically glowing in his newfound freedom. Another bolt cackled and another crack in the path though the Lake fell away. "I told your father my curse would be upon your bloodline forever," the Emperor sneered at Ben, "Do you honestly think you could defeat me where he failed?"
Ben sent a telekinetic shove out to the Emperor, who deflected it instead of directly countering it. Vestara sent her own barrage of lightning at him, only to see him bend it to cage of electricity around him. Crooked teeth and withered grin flashed in the electric sphere. He blasted it away in a pulse of pent up Force power. "Silly girl, are you really naive enough to think you can best me here?" Another wave of lightning struck one of the open ponds, the occupant crying out in anguish as the water amplified the attack. "Unwanted, unloved, unimportant," he punctuated each word with another crack of electricity.
Vestara was shocked to see them so on the defensive. With Abeloth, they'd been able to hold their own, but Palaptine kept them apart, off balance with the taunts. She had a nightmarish thought of what would happen if this demon ever found the Font or the waters from the Pool, he'd make Abeloth look like a jilted prom date demanding everyone know how pretty she was. She opened herself to the Force, to Ben, and could feel the leering Shadow before them.
Ben felt Vestara reach out to him, it had been the first time since what had happened in the cockpit, though this was far from the intent to share, they needed to stop the Sith Lord now. He looked back to the putrefied fissure Palpatine had been trapped in, the dulled shackles writhing beneath the surface. Ben and Vestara's eyes met and they knew what they had to do.
Leaping over the voids, Ben sent blasts of Force power at the Emperor. Palpatine swatted each one away and hurled more lightning back. Vestara had never known any of the High Lords or even the Grand Lord to be so proficient in the art, practically every attack from him was wreathed in violet energy. With Ben distracting, a strategy that had worked on Abeloth, Vestara's tentacle lashed out for Palpatine's neck, only to be intercepted by his gaunt wrist. She'd known the old man had strength amplified by dark power, but his arm reminded her of durasteel cable, strong and ropy. Ben caught a bolt on his arm and the Sith Lord pulled Vestara in close, holding fast to her feeler. "I've been a master of these arts longer than you've lived." He pumped electricity directly into her arm, bones lighting up as it arced to her torso. She dropped to her knees with his towering form hovering over her.
Seeing Vestara in trouble, Ben sent out an acute burst of kinetic energy at Palpatine, catching him unaware as he'd been focused on Vestara. Billowing smoke trailed his flowing cloak, the Sith let go of Vestara and landed near where his cell had been. Rising to his feet, Palpatine's clawed hands sparked perfect orbs of energy.
Ben and Vestara worked in tandem a massive wave of kinetic push and crackling electricity forced Palpatine to step back, closer to his cell. They kept up the assault until he was within range of his snake-like chains. Catching the Emperor's leg, he fell back to them. The hooked manacles lunged from the depths and wrapped around his torso, holding him down, biting into him, but unable to pull him all the way back in.
The pain he hadn't felt before was clearly visible on his deformed face now, eyes glowing in hate as the pair of teenagers approached. "A splendid effort," he twitched as another flesh hook caught his neck, stretching the loose skin, "but if you let me go back, you'll never know what the entity did."
Vestara's crimson eyes flared and her tentacle arm wrapped itself around the Emperor's bony neck. "Tell us, or you die."
Despite the constricted airway, Palpatine actually laughed at them, ruined teeth on full display. "I live an existence worse than death, mongrel, do you think you can threaten me with a lesser sentence? I want freedom."
Vestara looked to Ben and back. "Deal. Tell us and we'll let you go, but no more attacks."
"Ves, no—" Ben started.
"—Free me first." Palpatine cut him off.
"Not a chance, you tell us, or we leave you here. We'll come back in a few weeks to see just how strong those chains really are."
As if on cue, another catch found his back and dug in. Sooty smoke started leaking out of the wound. For the first time, a flicker of uncertainty slithered in the Emperor's eyes. "She freed someone here, sent them back to the physical realm."
"Who?" Vestara tightened her grip as the hooks pulled a little harder.
The chain in his back wrenched itself out, pulling a large chunk with it. Palpatine winced in pain as more smoke poured out of him. "One of my old students, a Hand from the Empire."
"The name," Ben said, his earlier reservation gone so close to the answer they needed, how Abeloth had changed the future, with whom.
"Cronal," Palpatine hissed, "but you'll need me to stop him. Let me go, and we will destroy the entity you seek."
Before Palpatine could start to weave another web to entice them, Ben stepped in to cut him off. "I think not."
"You promised to set me free if I told you. If you leave me here, you betray your Jedi heritage, Skywalker."
That got a reaction, Ben still was struggling to balance what he was supposed to be with the Jedi ideals he'd wanted to live up to. He hadn't promised it himself, but he'd gotten the information out of that deal. Wasn't he duty bound to honor it?
"Perhaps," Vestara said, clearly enjoying herself now, "but I have no such reservations."
She raised her normal hand and sent an electric pulse at the ground, collapsing it from under the Sith Lord. The chains yanked down and pulled the Emperor under. He snarled an incoherent expression of rage and reached up to pull Vestara with him, as he'd tried before. With Ben there this time, he sent another hammer of Force energy down at Palpatine, knocking him back. He fell forever, or perhaps it only seemed that way. All along the way, he fought against the bloody chains, demonic smoke-like wings sprouted from his wounds and he worked against the shackles, lost in an endless struggle to gain ground on them.
Ben and Vestara fell back, exhausted from the battle they hadn't expected. They drew ragged breaths. Ben turned his head to her. "What happened?"
Vestara looked ashamed. "I made a mistake, listened when I shouldn't have."
"What could he possibly have said that would do that?"
Vestara squirmed for a second. "I'll tell you, if you want, but not here, not now. We need to get out of here, we don't know how long it's been."
Ben tapered his eyes, not quite ready to cede the issue, though he was the immediate discussion of it. "I still have one thing I still want to do. Someone I need see."
"Who?" Vestara asked as she got to her shaky feet, pulling Ben behind her.
He'd stated walking away already.
"Mom."
The voice was clear and strong, but there was emotion under it. Mara Jade Skywalker opened her eyes to see her son kneeling over her spot in the Lake.
"You know you shouldn't be here," she said, but she couldn't help but smile as she looked up to her boy. He'd grown since last she saw him, so very long since she'd been able to touch him. Mara was, as always, observant, and saw not only Ben's blue sparkled eyes, but the red ones of his companion and her arm. "What happened, Ben? Why are you here?"
"Long story, Mom, but we're here to kill Abeloth."
"You can't kill her, she's one of the Old Ones." Mara said, she seemed to constantly have to remind her husband about it, but now their son, too.
Ben gave a sad little smile. "There's a way, we've seen it."
"We?"
Vestara, who'd politely stayed back while Ben talked with his mother, stepped forward when Ben beckoned her. "This is Vestara, Mom."
Mara gave a shrewd once over of the brunette, the perpetual grin of her mouth, the tensed tendril of an arm. "Your . . . girlfriend?" Mara asked, though she suspected the answer already by the way they seemed so comfortable next to one another.
Vestara gave a shy smile, at least as much as she was able to. She hadn't really thought Ben would take her to see his mother. It was most certainly not a pleasant experienced, to be judged.
"I—yes, Mom." Ben said, "I thought you should meet her."
Mara sent her gaze back to Ben. "Where's your father?"
"He's," Ben paused, as if to find the right words, "not here. We had a disagreement about what we have to do."
"It's been a long time since either of us could tell you what to do, Ben," Mara's eyes seemed to tear beneath the water. "Just follow your heart and you'll do what needs to be done, but never forget your father and I love you. Even if we might not agree, we always do."
"Thanks Mom," Ben's voice hitched.
"Vestara," Mara called, "take care of Ben for me."
Not really sure what to say, she nodded.
"Now go," Mara said "you've both been here too long."
"Where do we go?" Ben asked, "The Pool is ruined."
Mara's hand reached out from the water and stroked Ben's. "Your father said everything here is tied to a physical location. If something is wrong here, maybe you can find what you need there," Mara smiled. "Now go. Remember, you're stronger together."
Ben and Vestara looked at one another, Mara looking on from beneath the water, and pulled themselves back to their bodies onboard the Rook.
Author's Note: Yeah, I couldn't resist putting Palpatine in this one, I just couldn't imagine him not trying to get out. If you're wondering why Abeloth didn't do anything to them while they were there, she'd still far too weak to engage in an actual battle.