Father's Monastery, Mortis; 44 ABY

"Children," the tall woman called, Cheshire cat grin and twinkling eyes showing who she really was. "Join me and we will live forever in bliss."

She extended one small hand to them, only to see a look similar to the one her servant had displayed when she consumed his pilot. She would not be denied again, she gave them everything and they still spurned her?

"I think not."

Abeloth had the time to wonder what that was supposed to be mean before her servant plunged the Dagger into her chest. A soft pulse of light rocked her body, so newly won and already taken by betrayal. Her hand clawed and plunged into her servant's chest, nonetheless nothing bled out. It was a spiritual assault, though one she couldn't carry though fully. She fell to her knees as the power of the Dagger blazed through her.

Cronal stood over her, the others forgotten as he looked into her shining eyes. "You did not honestly believe a sentimental wretch like you would be allowed to rule, did you?" He spat, "there is only one divine in this life, and that is the eternal embrace of oblivion."

Her face scrunched up in a combination of rage and pain. He twisted sharply and the pain dominated. The light in her eyes faded and body went slack, hand falling to the stone ground beside her.

Throughout all this, Luke, Ben, and Vestara looked on in shock as Cronal effectively did their job. Their lightsabers drawn, they leapt down to the possessed Jedi still holding the Dagger. Luke lifted his blade. "Surrender."

"Surrender?" Cronal turned, wincing slightly from the injury Abeloth had dealt him as her final act of retribution, feeling the extent of the damage she'd done. "Never."

Lightning spat from his fingers, as powerful as Vestara had been able to summon. "You've drunk from the Font of Power," she accused, catching the electricity on her blade.

Instead of replying, he just ramped up the energy. Bolts as thick as cables shot out. Vestara rolled by the one intended for her and landed on her feet before Luke and block the one intended for him. "Get back," she called. The attack would have overpowered his defense. He fell back, saber still held in a defensive position.

Vestara gestured with her other hand and lightning of her own arced toward Cronal. He abandoned his own attack and drew his saber. All three were on him at once. The Jedi Knight's body had known how to duel well enough, but not against three of such proficiency at once, certainly not wounded. Skywalker was not the inexperienced Jedi they'd grappled with last.

With the battle now reduced to lightsabers, Luke took point and hit Cronal with a barrage of slashes that forced him to fall back. Reaching out in the Force, he saw the tar-lined ropes that tethered Cronal to his host. Utilizing the same techniques that underlined Mnemotherapy, Luke ripped at the dark side spirit.

Cronal's howl of agony echoed throughout the arena. Vestara took the distraction to stab her blade into his stomach. Time seemed to still. Cronal's milky eyes swam, whirlpools drawing lines of darkness into the centers. With considerable effort, he reasserted himself and blasted away his attackers with a repulse that cracked the walls. As they flew away, Cronal brought up the Dagger and cut a gash along Ben's chest. Had he not been flying away at the time, it probably would have cut him asunder.

Seeing he wasn't a match for the three in direct combat, Cronal fled. Clutching his pierced stomach, he dropped the Dagger and ran. Time was of the essence. With any luck, the other two would tend to Skywalker's son in lieu of pursuit. He didn't stay around to see how much damage he'd done, so it would be best to get to his ship sooner rather than later. He would recover and hunt them down in his own time.

"Ben!" Vestara screamed when she saw him, she felt like her own chest had been sliced open and ran to his side. Luke wasn't far behind, but had the presence of mind to check for a follow-up attack. Instead of the possessed Knight, he only saw the Dagger's handle lying on the ground. He telekinetically summoned it to him as he ran to his son.

The gash wasn't particularly deep, but it appeared to do far more damage than a simple knife should have been able to. Vestara's eyes welled with tears. "Ben, can you hear me?" She clutched the torn front of his robes.

His eyes fluttered, and tried to say something, but it came out in a gargle. Luke placed his hand on Ben forehead and sent pulses of healing energy to his son. The response was minimal, Ben was bleeding off life energy, unable to muster enough to heal while it hemorrhaged out. His normal appearance faded as he no longer could sustain it. Vestara reached out, as she hadn't fully done on Abeloth's planet, and drained all she could. She drew in the world's life force in one of the most destructive ways possible. Though there were no plants in the arena, Luke knew they would be dying all over this world, the world itself would be a wasteland because of this.

She took it in and washed it over Ben, not caring for whatever damage she was doing to the planet. It was painfully slow, but he was able to direct the healing with enough clarity to seal the wound. When she was done, all that was left was a scar running the length of where the cut had been, healing only able to do so much in the face of the mystical blade. Vestara collapsed next to Ben, skin flaking and cracked from the exertion. Her control over her appearance slackened and her face split in two. The barest gleam of red light shone from her eyes before they closed.

Luke had been forced to brace himself from the torrent Vestara had channeled, only to find the pair of them unconscious when it was all over. Luke examined them both, and they were alive, if not particularly healthy at this point. He traced the scar along Ben's chest. Making sure they were laid out under an overhang, he went over to examine Abeloth.

Dagger in hand, having materialized the blade when he held it, Luke looked down on the Force entity that had proven so hard to kill. Slack-jawed, it lay there with a look of profound shock on its face. Luke didn't recognize the body, but he suspected that it had once belonged to the Daughter. The gaping chest would hadn't bled like Ben's had, it was dry inside, as if the blood had dried in her veins. Luke couldn't see much point in doing anything else here, and going after Cronal at this point would be foolish. Instead, he took Ben and Vestara to one of the rooms they'd passed on their way to the arena and slid the door shut. He would head to the Shadow and bring it back here. The quicker the pair got medical treatment, the better.

Cronal was in pain. That, of course, was a tremendous understatement. He'd experienced firsthand what it was like for a human body to be accelerated through hyperspace without a vessel, and this beat it, hands down. Whatever Skywalker had done, his very fabric felt shredded. The lightsaber wound to his gut didn't help, either. He stumbled over the path he and Abeloth had taken to the monastery.

That, at least, was one good thing accomplished. He finally rid himself of that incessant fool and her naive dreams of ruling the galaxy like a fairy tale princess. There was no room for rule in a galaxy destined to being torn asunder.

He took his ship up and out of the Monolith only to see his pirates were gone. They had . . . abandoned him. He must have lost his hold over them and they fled. Traitors. He would deal with them all in time, and devise a redefining of pain for their weak minds to grasp. Until then, he needed a place to recover, to heal. In a galaxy so far removed from his own time, he decided it would be best to try the world that had introduced him to the galaxy at large, where he became a Prophet of the Dark Side. Inputting the coordinates to the world, his shuttle jumped to hyperspace.

As Luke made his way back to the Shadow, Vestara's actions were on full effect. All the trees and plants were shriveled, not even the ones exhibiting the white veins he associated with the dark side were spared. The first distant rumble took him by surprise as he neared the Son's former home. Fissures were cracking the landscape. As he brought the Shadow into the atmosphere, the ground swallowed the entire tower. Luke had a sinking feeling and rushed back to where Ben and Vestara were. There was no longer any castle of ice in the distance, presumably lost in the same manner as the citadel.

Once he'd gotten them onboard, Luke made for the section of the sky though which they'd originally entered. The white-hot light seared the Shadow's screens as they exited the Monolith. Turning back, Luke watched as the pyramid-like hemispheres collapsed on one another, destroying what little could have survived the earthquakes. Before the jump to hyperspace was fully calculated, Mortis was dead.

When Vestara opened her eyes, she was relieved to see the antiseptic ceiling of the Jade Shadow's medical bay. She was still very weak, barely able to lift her arm, which she noted had an IV line into it. She still felt like someone had slit open her chest. With that realization clicking she jerked up to look for Ben. Luke's hand gently halted her. "How are you feeling?" He asked.

"How—how's Ben?" She winced slightly at the way even talking hurt.

"He's recovering, how are you feeling?" Luke made sure to put the right emphasis to get her attention.

"I'm hurt, but it's not fatal," her strength was returning, as if what she experienced upon waking was a lingering effect of what she'd felt on Mortis. She pushed past Luke's hand to sit all the way up. "Where are we going?"

"Cronal escaped and Mortis is gone," Luke explained, "so I'm taking you two to Shedu Maad to recover."

"No," she started, "I won't go back to that cage."

"Relax," Luke soothed, he'd decided that it wouldn't hurt to extend a little trust. She had already been given ample opportunity to kill him already and instead defended him. "You're not going to be locked up."

"I—thank you," she managed, somewhat skeptical, but willing to take the risk. Thinking back to the events leading up to her blackout, she let out a breath of relief. "Abeloth is gone."

"So it would seem," Luke said. "Cronal left the Dagger behind when he fled."

Vestara felt her blood boil at that creature's name. She wanted to plaster his innards across the galaxy, wanted to peel open—she looked over at Ben. This was the same rage she'd had before, when she couldn't feel him, as she couldn't now. He'd withdrawn completely into a healing trance, withdrawn from her.

Luke was going to give her some time to fully waken, but was stopped when she grasped his hand. "What is it?" He turned back.

"If I can't—if something ever happens to Ben," she pleaded, her voice sounding genuine fear.

"It's okay, Vestara, he's going to recover." Luke assured her.

"But if it does, in the future," she begged. "You need to use the Dagger."

Luke was confused. "Use it?"

"On me."

"What are you talking about?"

"I'm not—I'm dangerous, without him," her eyes bore into his. "I don't want to be alone, I won't become like Her. I'd rather it be over."

Luke felt a wash of sympathy run through him. He knew those thoughts well, not wanting to live because he was alone. He'd spent too many nights wanting to just die because he wouldn't see Mara or hear her voice ever again. He grasped her shoulders and crouched down to eye-level. "Get some sleep, we'll be there soon," Luke prodded. "He's going to be fine."

Vestara doubted he truly understood what she was saying, it was a part of her new self that only Ben knew, only Ben could genuinely control. If she lost him, she'd have to do it herself. She refused to become the needy thing they'd released from the Maw. But that time wasn't now, she prayed it would never happen. For now, Ben would recover. For now, she just had to hold on to her anger until he woke. Those were her last thoughts before falling into a healing trance of her own, her adrenaline-fueled strength failing her.

Author's Note: Yeah, kind of a twist at the beginning. I never really liked Abeloth as a villain all that much, not quite as destructive as her title of 'Bringer of Chaos' implies. She always struck me as naive, so it wasn't hard to see her overestimating her control over someone.