Author's note: it's been a supremely long time since I've thought about this story, but with Ahsoka behind us, I really wanted to finish this chapter since it's the one I've been meaning to write for a long long time. This is my culmination of analysing Star Wars mythology, particularly the Chosen One and the true meaning of balance. If you've just watched Part 5 of that show, this chapter is perfect for you. And, without tuting my own horn (except I will of course, because it's fun), this is probably the best thing I've ever written. Better even than 'The Titles They Give Us', my Brienne story in a A Game's End. I'm very pleased with it. Whether or not you agree with me, I hope you enjoy it.
PS: it would be wise to have seen the Mortis arc of the Clone Wars to understand this story better. Fair warning.
Balance
The destinies of individuals and galaxies hinge on the smallest moments
The Father's monastery,
Mortis,
Then
"And now you see who you truly are," the Father's ethereal voice told Anakin as he stood over the glowing form of the Daughter and the shaded Son. "Only the Chosen One could have tamed both my Children."
Anakin knew that, just as he now knew that he was the Chosen One, that he always had been. He could no longer hear the voices of the Jedi Council, denying that the prophecy was real, or the expectations of the other Jedi, who hoped that such a saviour could be real, especially in the days since the Clone Wars had started. For now, he had never felt such certainty about his purpose, or his destiny. The memory of the pure power of the Force still ran through his veins. He had never felt such power in all his life. Not once.
It had felt right.
But then, as he saw Obi-Wan and Ahsoka walking towards him, he remembered what it had all been about to start with.
"I've taken your test," he said, an edge in his voice as the memory of the power grew ever more distant. "Now fulfil your promise and let us go."
"Ah, but first, you must understand the truth. Now, all of you leave us."
Ahsoka stepped closer to Anakin, whispering in a tone that brooked no disagreement. "Do not trust him."
"You think?!" Anakin snapped back at her.
"I said, leave us." The Father's tone was sharper, with enough weight that everyone, both his Children and the two stranded Jedi, obeyed without further objection until the Father and Anakin stood alone in the monastery's arena.
Then, the Father spoke.
"Do you feel your destiny? You must see it now. I am dying, and you must replace me."
"Replace you? I can't stay here." Anakin said. Did he even understand what he was asking? What about the war? Didn't he care that if they let the Separatists win, the Sith would be one step closer to taking over the galaxy? And there was Padmé…
"But this is yours. It has been foretold. The Chosen One will remain to keep my Children in Balance." The fates of galaxies always hinge on the smallest moments. Or the smallest words.
"No." Anakin said. Surely this had to be a trap. He couldn't leave the galaxy behind. Not the Jedi, or the clones who depended on him. And certainly not Padmé.
The Father looked down in disappointment and sadness. "
I cannot force you to do this." Had Anakin imagined the moment, or did it sound like the Father wished he could have? A twinge of fear seized him and he felt the need to explain.
But the Father wasn't done.
"The choice must be yours. But, leave and your selfishness shall haunt you. And the galaxy."
Anakin did leave, left to the shuttle where Obi-Wan and Ahsoka waited. As he was about to step onto the platform, he turned back to take one last look at the monastery and the mysterious planet around them. A strange feeling was overcoming him, a remnant of that sense of certainty he had felt when he had defeated the Daughter and the Son. And he couldn't quite shake the feeling that something was wrong.
"Ready to get out of here?"
He turned to see Obi-Wan at the top of the ramp, looking down at his former apprentice with concern. Ahsoka stood beside him, eyeing her Master with similar worry.
Anakin turned back. None of the Ones had come to see them off, disappearing once the Father had spoken his final words. It reassured him. If they were truly desperate for a saviour, for him to stay, they would have come. They would have stopped him until he accepted.
He couldn't stay. Not when people needed him.
Anakin turned his back on the monastery and walked up to join his master and his apprentice.
The destinies of individuals and galaxies hinge on the smallest moments.
Abandoned homestead,
Tatooine,
35 ABY
Ben did not know what to say, as he looked on the ethereal shape of his grandfather.
But he tried anyway: "You…. You're…. I…. You are…!"
Anakin Skywalker smiled at his grandson, or rather smirked. "Were you expecting someone else?"
Ben does not know why, but he immediately realises that the answer is yes.
"Your mother isn't here, Ben," Anakin told him.
"What?!"
"Not yet."
"But…" he still didn't quite know what to say, so he said the first thing that comes to him. "But… I felt her die. Shouldn't she… be where you are? Where… Luke is?"
"She will be," the Force ghost looked away from his grandson, turning his attention to the ruined farmstead they were standing beside, his eyes surveying the ruins, the ravages of dozens of past sandstorms, and eventually coming to rest on a point just beyond the chasm. Ben looked too, but he saw nothing. What was his grandfather looking at? Something that was buried in the sand? "All things are of the Force, and we all return to it eventually. Leia will find her way back when she is ready, just as Luke did. Just as I did."
"How long did it take you… Grandfather?" he added the name he had used for him in the past, as though in prayer, but he used it hesitantly.
Anakin smiled. "Not long. And no need to be so formal with me." He indicated his appearance, a sly smile shedding some of the intensity on his face and giving him a boyishly handsome look. "I'm not that old, am I?"
Ben could not bring himself to smile back; shock was still too raw in him. He was speaking to his grandfather! How many times had he heard about the legendary Anakin Skywalker, the great hero of the Clone Wars? And now, he was looking at him and… he wasn't what he expected. When Ben looked at Anakin's robes, they reminded him of the ones Luke had once worn. And his eyes were the same as his son's, with the same twinkle of mischief. And he saw the steely determination he had sensed so much in Leia. Even the long, wavy blond hair was a distant echo of his own, a warped reflection.
"What should I call you?" he eventually asked.
Anakin's smirk widened… "I don't know." … and then faded. "But there is one name you want to call me by, one you're not sure you'll dare mention."
Ben tensed, because he had been thinking of another name.
"It's alright. You won't hurt me, or yourself, by saying it aloud. Say it."
He took a step forward, and Ben reflexively walked back.
"Say it," Anakin repeated, though not unkindly.
So he did.
"Vader."
A darkness veiled Anakin's features, and he turned around, looking back over the Wastes. Ben feared that he had said something he shouldn't have.
And as he looked at his grandfather's ghost, something changed.
The darkness that had fallen over Anakin's face was spreading.
His robes were turning dark, and he seemed to be getting taller. The wavy strands of his hair darkened and straightened, and a dome fell over his head. Ben could not only see the change happening, he could also feel it, in the very nature of the Force all around him; an oppression he had only ever felt before in the presence of the Emperor's power. Soon, a tall figure stood where Anakin had once been, black cloak barely tousled by the wind, and a deep, different voice spoke to him.
"Impressive… Ben." Followed by a deep, mechanical breath.
And the shape of Darth Vader turned to face his grandson.
"My Lord, I…"
"'Lord,'" Anakin's voice had suddenly returned, laughter in it. "I might have preferred 'Grandfather', come to think of it."
The young man was confused. How was this possible?
"Are…?" he wasn't even sure how to shape the question. "Are… you… Vader? Or Anakin?"
The ghost in front of him right now wore Anakin's face. But it also cast a shadow onto the house behind him, and he saw that it was not the young Jedi's: it was the familiar outline of Darth Vader.
"Is that the question you really want to ask me, Ben?"
"Don't… don't call me that."
"Why not?"
"It's not my name."
"So what is your name?"
"I…" and the realisation, yet again, that in that instance, he didn't have a name. He wasn't Ben Solo, but he wasn't Kylo Ren anymore either. "…don't know."
Anakin smiled sadly. "I know how that feels. Not knowing who you are, longing for something different. Hating the result. I understand."
"I never wanted this."
"I understand that too."
"But you…" he stopped himself. He wasn't sure how much he wanted to offend his grandfather. How powerful was he?
" 'I' what?" Anakin asked. "Say what you want to say."
"I'm not sure I can."
"You aren't sure of much, are you, Ben?"
"Don't call me that!"
"Why not?"
"Just don't!" And suddenly, a familiar feeling rose in him, the rage that had fed Kylo Ren. Hot and certain. Easy.
The blade was in his hand and ignited before he had even realised it. And he glared at his grandfather, daring him to say anymore.
Anakin wasn't smiling anymore. Nor was he angry. He just looked like he understood. That was worse.
"Is this what you really want, Ben?"
Kylo pointed his blade at Anakin. "I don't… want… that name."
"And yet, it's yours."
The fury burned hot and familiar. It felt good.
Kylo Ren lunged at his grandfather, his blade sizzling and sparking in the baking air of Tatooine. Anakin didn't move and inch, didn't reach for a lightsaber or summon the power of the Force. He just stood and watched the blade come down on him.
It hit…
…and Kylo Ren stumbled forward into another world.
The desert heat was gone.
Instead, Kylo Ren stood in the middle of a deserted arena in a place he did not know, a place he had never seen before. He stood on a circle at the heart of design intertwining light and dark. Above him, a massive tower, an ancient monastery loomed. And he felt the power of the Force more strongly than he ever had before. He looked down at himself. His Kylo Ren garb was back. The jacket, the cloak; everything.
Even his hand was back. He flexed his fingers, just to check. It felt… real. Solid. The blade flew from his left hand to the other, pulled by the Force. He caught it. He spun the blade back and forth as he usual did, its usual flourishes. He smiled, relieved. Kylo turned, the hum of the blade on the air the only sound. There was nothing else, not even wind.
"Where are you?" He shouted at the empty arena.
Nothing.
"I know you're here. Where are we? What is this?"
"I never knew myself." Anakin's voice sounded behind him, sounding surprisingly soft even in the waste emptiness.
Kylo turned to see Anakin standing on one of the light motifs of the arena. He looked different. He wasn't a ghost anymore. His robes were gone, his hair was shorter. And he looked younger. Kylo noticed the armour pieces on his forearms. And the lightsaber at his blade, the familiar saber he had seen Rey use so many times.
He flicked his blade a few times, standing with his body facing sideways and the lightsaber in a one-handed grip behind him.
"Where… is this?"
"A good question. Even now, I'm not entirely sure whether this place was real or not. Whether we were really there or not. But those questions were less important than the reason why we were here."
"We?"
Anakin took a step forward, a single one. Kylo tensed but didn't more. He felt no movement in the Force, nor was Anakin reaching for his blade. He took another step forward, looking around him at the empty arena.
"I didn't know it at the time, but this is the place where Darth Vader was born. This is where I could have defeated him long before he could have even have happened." He turned to look at Kylo. "And this is where you can defeat Kylo Ren."
Kylo crouched further down, preparing his blade. "What if I don't want to?"
Anakin sighed. And casually removed his blade from his belt, pointing the hilt towards the ground without igniting it. "Then, this will be inevitable."
Finally, Kylo thought. Something he could understand.
He sprinted towards Anakin, his blade sizzling. His grandfather didn't move, waited until the moment Kylo reached him.
His blade ignited and caught the red blade's thrust. Anaking pushed him back with a strength that Kylo only resisted by using the Force to keep himself close. Then, he lugged again and struck to the side where Anakin blocked again. Taking his lightsaber in a double-handed grip, Kylo launched a series of offensive slashes, all coming from different sides. Anakin blocked them all with ease.
Kylo broke off. They stood apart, blades at their sides. This was only the first bout. Anakin was good, very good. But he was better.
"Are you sure…" his grandfather asked, "this is a fight you want?"
Kylo felt better than he had in a long time. "Are you?"
"No."
The answer surprised him. He sneered in a way he had seen Han Solo do any times, a mannerism he had tried and failed to ride himself of. "Why? Because you know you can't beat me?"
Anakin smiled sadly. "Because I know I can."
Kylo's smile faltered. And he lugged.
But, before he even reached Anakin, he realised his right hand was missing once more. Time froze as he saw the moment he reached his grandfather, imagining the feeling of the blade as it cut through him.
Anakin did not raise his blade. Instead, he pushed out with the Force, forcing Kylo back. The young darksider crashed into the ground, just beside his fallen lightsaber. Rage coursed through him as he looked at his stump.
"You can't win this fight, Ben. You never could."
"Don't…" he seized the lightsaber in his left hand. "call me that!"
He rose and flew at Anakin. The lightsabers clashed again. Even with his left hand, Kylo was a formidable combatant and he pushed Anakin back to the edge of the arena. And, very soon, he realised his grandfather was only using defensive techniques. Not once did he use an offensive move. Anakin's back slammed into the wall. Kylo fell on him just as he brought his blade up to block his attack.
"Is this what the great hero of the Clone Wars is?" Kylo snarled over the hiss of the blades. "A coward?"
"I used to believe as you do. That choosing not to fight was cowardly. But there are no such absolutes."
He forced Kylo back. Once more, they were separated. Anakin, to Kylo's surprise, shut down his lightsaber. "Choosing to keep fighting, even when we should have stopped long ago, can only lead to one place."
Anakin breathed in and out, eyes closed, his hands at his sides. It was the same pose Luke had adopted on Crait. Kylo saw red and, like with Luke, he rushed forward and struck at Anakin.
A red blade came out of nowhere and intercepted his.
In a blink, Anakin had vanished. The day above turned, planetary speed becoming visible as the night covered the sky and stars shone from their unfathomable distances. An eerie gloom fell over the arena.
And, growing over the clashing blades, Kylo heard a sound, a familiar sound. Heavy mechanised breathing.
"The dark side is a cycle of destruction." Darth Vader said, appearing as though out of the shadows. He towered over Kylo, larger than the young man had ever thought possible. "And fear."
Kylo was afraid. He didn't want to be. He screamed and pushed with all the power the Force gave him, forcing Vader back. Before the Dark Lord could react, he fell on him, slashing and attacking in ways the larger man could not catch. But Vader was nimbler than he imagined. Every stroke was intercepted by his red blade. They danced around each other, each one of Kylo's strikes a scream of rage, all of Vader's a careful calculation. No matter what Kylo did, he could not break through. And then, the Dark Lord changed tactics. Suddenly, he attacked, bringing his blade down on Kylo with such force that the blade went flying back. Kylo spun round using the Force, crouched into a defensive position and waited for Vader's next assault. Blow after blow rained down on him, each heavier and more precise than the last. Without his double handed grip, Kylo struggled, forced back as he had once forced Anakin back. They traced the dark curve of the pattern until they reached the far wall.
No, Kylo thought, rage flaring through him, the Force lending strength to his limbs as he parked his feet in. When Vader's next blow came, in, he caught it and did not budge. Over the red blades, he saw the expressionless dark mask he had idolised for so long. He felt the rage behind it, the cold calculation.
"Most impressive," Vader in an unreadable tone.
"No… more… lessons." Kylo said, pushing Vader back before striking out at his blade. The sizzling lightsaber cut through the blade, severing and sending its two pieces tumbling into the dark of the arena.
Vader stood, saberless. At Kylo's mercy. Kylo smiled. And lunged.
Vader reached out a hand and caught him with the Force. The Force of his grip was so strong that Kylo couldn't move an inch. His hand grew weak and, no matter how much Kylo tried, he couldn't hold on. His lightsaber slipped from his fingers to the ground.
"Your victories will be great," Vader said. "And they will be hollow. They will never be enough."
He curled his hand into a fist and Kylo fell to his knees. He felt a tightening around him, a great fear he had never been able to master. So he lashed out. "But I will be greater than you."
"Is that what you truly want? Is that the truth of Kylo Ren?"
A shape appeared before Vader. The mask; his mask. The one he had destroyed, reforged and veined with angry red lines. The mask splintered and floated towards him, reforming around his face before settling in. Darkness fell around him. Kylo screamed as the shattered remains reformed around him, tightening. The parts of Kylo Ren imprisoned him, fastening until there was no hope of escape. And all Kylo felt was despair.
"This is the truth of Kylo Ren," Vader said.
The Dark Lord opened his fist, raised it above his head, and slammed it back down onto the floor of the arena. The Force shattered it and Kylo was falling, his screams silent, fighting against the mask that would not let them escape, his pain imprisoned with him. He fell into the void, stars floating around him. And he saw the worlds he had visited. The sites of his victories. Crait, Kimiji, Mustafar, Ahch-To. But they were worlds no longer. They were shattered rocks in space. He saw the faces of those he had defeated. Luke, Leia, Han, Rey, Fin-2187. Snoke. All floating around him, all dead, the slashes of his lightsaber. They floated past him. And he screamed. Silently, always silently. The ruins of a thousand worlds floated past him, ignoring him. The bodies no longer saw him, no longer caring that Kylo Ren had bested them.
Eventually, he stopped screaming. There was nothing left to scream about. The stars went out. And Kylo Ren floated, silent and forgotten in the corpse of the galaxy he had sentenced to the dark.
Heat was the first thing that struck him.
He awoke to find himself back on Tatooine, back beside the small hut. The cloak, the jacket, the blaster. Even the red crystal he had clutched in his left hand. They all lay beside him. No longer trying to claw back to him.
"Do you understand now, Ben?"
Anakin appeared to him again from the heat haze of the desert. His robes were back, his longer wavy hair. There was no trace of Vader.
"I… think so."
"Good. Then can you now ask me the question you haven't been able to yet?"
Kylo sat up. Looked up at his grandfather. And tried again.
"Vader. Was he…" he paused, ensure what he wanted to say. What was the right word? "…inevitable?"
Anakin knelt before. "Could I have chosen a different path?"
"Yes."
"I can show you." Anakin extended a hand towards his grandson. For a moment, they were both silent. "Do you want to?"
He wasn't sure. Did he? Would the answer really be the one he wanted? He didn't know. And that scared him.
But he was tired of being scared.
He reached out and took Anakin's hand.
The Father's monastery,
Mortis,
Then
"And now you see who you truly are. Only the Chosen One could have tamed both my Children. you must understand the truth. Do you feel your destiny? You must see it now. I am dying, and you must replace me. this is yours. It has been foretold. The Chosen One will remain to keep my Children in Balance."
The Father's words rang in Anakin's ears, the talk of destiny he had been hearing since he had joined the Jedi Order. And he knew what he wanted to say, his own speech about the obligations he had to others. He thought of Padmé, Obi-Wan, Ahsoka, the Jedi, the clones. All those in the galaxy who counted on him. Everything that had mattered to him; the Republic, the Separatists. The Sith.
In another path, he would have let them guide him. He would have said 'no'. And the galaxy was sentenced to the tyranny of the Empire. To the evils of Darth Vader.
But, this time, Anakin Skywalker did not say no.
He recalled the clarity he had felt when he had tamed the Daughter and the Son, the power he had felt. He had felt the entirety of the galaxy in that moment, every single being living and their connection to the Force. He had felt whole of the Living Force, seen the complexities of the Cosmic Realm. It had been impossible to ignore.
And, rather than make a choice based on his own choices, he chose to follow the one lesson Obi-Wan had tried to teach him so long ago, the only one he had never taken on board, always driven by the need to act, to not stand still. For once, he followed his old Master's advice.
He sat on the ground, cross-legged. He was aware of the Father looking down at him but he ignored him. He closed his eyes. And opened himself up to the Force. The power of Mortis rushed through him once more, purer and more powerful than he had ever felt. He sensed the day turning into night with the speed of a spinning planet, the turn of the seasons as the years went by in their everlasting cycle. He sensed them all, all the beings who lived in the galaxy. Not those who had come before or the ones who would exist, but those now. Their suffering from the pressures and horrors of the Clone Wars. The joys shining in the dark, the unbreakable bonds only war could create. The dark feelings, the jealousies, the feeling of being abandoned. He felt them all. He sensed the fear. And the hope. But hope was falling. The dark was rising.
He saw the galaxy as it was. He saw the clones, fighting with purpose they had never been meant to have. The small lifeforms so small they could never be bothered by war. He felt the Jedi, desperate to protect. But lost under the weight of their contradictions.
And he saw the Sith, hiding in darkness. He saw them pulling their strings, waiting for the moment to reveal themselves. They wanted that moment, the rush of power they had been planning for so long. And delighting in the feelings engineered by the war they had caused.
Anakin felt it all. And in that moment, for the first time in his life as he opened himself more completely than he ever had to the power of the Force, he understood.
He opened his eyes, looked up at the Father. And said a single word.
"Yes."
The Father smiled down at him, his face hazier than it had been before as the world around him fell out of focus.
The next thing he knew, Anakin awoke in his shuttle, beside a similarly groggy Obi-Wan, Ahsoka still unconscious behind them.
The planets turned and the three Jedi were back on Coruscant, facing the Jedi Council. As Obi-Wan told them the tale of Mortis, Anakin watched the Masters, the most powerful of the Jedi. And, for the first time, he understood them perfectly. He saw what he had never seen before, what he had missed. Their wisdom, their judgement, their superiority. He had been wrong. It had never been any of those.
It was fear.
Before Obi-Wan had a chance to finish, he stepped forward.
"Something to say you have, young Skywalker?" Master Yoda asked.
"Yes, Master. Forgive me for this, but I must say what I truly learnt on Mortis. The only lesson that mattered, the one we have all forgotten."
The Masters shifted in their seats, uneasy with this. Some clearly wanted to interrupt, to remind this brash boy of his place. But Anakin didn't let them.
"I have return to inform you that I intend to leave. Consider this my resignation. From the Grand Army and from the Order."
For the first time in the entire time he had known the Jedi Council, Anakin saw them at a loss for words, too shocked to say anything. The armour he had never seen before was gone. No more wisdom or judgment. And, more clearly than ever, he saw the fear.
In the arena, the day gives way to night as the Chosen One pulls the Daughter's gryphon form towards him, her entire being powerless before the full might of the Force
As Anakin made his way to his shuttle after the confrontation with the Council, he felt more than he heard Obi-Wan coming after him.
"Why, Anakin? What is this all about?"
He turned to his former Master. "You don't understand, Obi-Wan. None of you do. I didn't either."
"You're right, I don't understand. So why don't you tell me?"
"I can't."
"Why not?"
"Because you're not ready."
Obi-Wan looks at him with so many questions in his eyes and, for the first time, Anakin sees the way they are. But their places have reversed. And he understands why his master had sometimes denied him answers. Sometimes, it mattered more that the answers were found rather than explained.
"One day, you will. And on that day, I will be happy to tell you everything you want to know."
Obi-Wan crosses his arms, seems to realise it and then raises one hand to his beard, as he always does when he thinks. He seems to be making a decision.
"Is this… about her?"
In the past, Anakin would have been horrified, mortified that Obi-Wan would have known about Padmé. But not now. Now, he was beyond those feelings.
"No. This isn't about her. It never should have been. And where I go, she doesn't have to follow. I hope she does, but I don't need her too."
The shock on Obi-Wan's face is almost comical. Anakin would smile if he didn't find it sad. "What about the war?" Obi-Wan asks. "The Separatists? The Sith? Is that why you are doing this? To draw them out?"
"I believe this will draw them out. But no. It isn't because of them. Or the Jedi. I'm… done with them. All of them."
Obi-Wan is still shocked. Anakin doesn't know how long they would have stood there, but his Master eventually smiles. "I don't know why," he says, "but I feel like you've taken a step into a much larger world. I only wish that I could follow you."
"Not stop me."
Obi-Wan laughs. "I have known you long enough, Anakin, to know that nothing will stop you once you make up your mind. If you must go, then go. And may the Force be with you."
Anakin turns to Obi-Wan, clasping his shoulders. Their foreheads touch. 'And to you, my Master, until the day you take your first step too. We will see each other again."
The world spins, night and day, light and dark. And the Chosen One stands at its heart, the power of the Force flowing through him.
He bids goodbye to his wife. She does not understand why he leaves, but she cannot follow him. The galaxy needs her. He understands. And turns away from her. He flies off into the void, following the guidance of the Force. His destination is clear. He doesn't know why but it has always made sense.
When he lands on Mandalore, he is greeted by envoys of Duchess Satine. He has chosen the neutral systems to settle. For now. When the duchess asks what he intends to do, he just smiles and asks her what her people need. The answer is simple: "Food." Anakin smiled again.
The next day, he leaves Mandalore to find those he seeks. He finds them on world the Jedi and the Republic haven't visited since long before the war began. In cantinas and diners, in spaceports and shipyards. He even finds a few in prisons. And he tells them all the same take. They want money, the means to keep going? The Duchess of Mandalore has money. She will pay for food and goods. They want to rebel against the Republic? They can go around the trade embargo that they have force on Mandalore and the other neutral systems for their refusal to participate in the war. Breaking the rules is what Anakin Skywalker is best at.
Smugglers and petty criminals unite in an alliance he has given purpose too.
But he also finds others. Those who have lost homes or jobs to the war and its economy, those desperate for work. They come to help solve the labour shortages on Mandalore and other neutral worlds.
He finds them among the discarded droids who had once been his friends on Tatooine, the ones every forgets. He rebuilds them, guiding others to do the same. It is hard work and there are always more problems. But there are solutions too. And Anakin Skywalker finds peace in finding them. Or guiding others to those solutions.
One day, during a meeting on Mandalore, Duchess Satine asks him what they will do about the way.
"We will ignore it," Anakin says.
"And what happens when it no longer ignores us?"
At that, Anakin smiles. "One day at a time, Duchess. We will deal with that when we must. If we must. Until then, we have work to do."
The Son's shape writhes against the Force holding it prisoner, the darkness broken by the light in a perpetual cycle. He thrashes and lashes against his bonds. The Chosen One does not let go.
On the day the Sith reveal themselves, Anakin Skywalker feels the disturbance in the Force. Every Force-user in the galaxy does. But he does not pay it any mind. Instead, he rises and returns to the task he had left off the next day, helping provide resources to the refugees of the catastrophe on Bromlark. Like many other worlds abandoned by the war, Bromlark has stopped asking the Republic or the Separatists for help. Instead, they turn to the Council of Neutral Systems. Aid is provided by the elaborate network of smugglers and traders created by Anakin Skywalker, by the droids he has repurposed for the tasks others cannot do, or to provide others with a job they can do. And for those none can, those where his powers will help, Anakin Skywalker helps.
Today, he uses the Force to remove the debris from where the town has fallen, trying to find survivors and materials for the inevitable reconstruction. The worst of the disaster is behind them, but there is still much work to do.
The first news he gets, he hears second hand.
"There has been a coup in the Republic. The Jedi have taken control."
Anakin feels a fleeting curiosity, a remaining part of his old self curious about what has happened. But he ignores it. The war was a farce, one that had become more and more distant as more and more worlds had chosen to align with the CNS rather than one of two options. He had given them something else to choose from. As they work, tales continue to fly of what has happened. The Jedi have arrested the Supreme Chancellor under accusations of treason. Stories are circulating that the Chancellor himself held the Senate hostage, necessitating the assistance of the Jedi. A few even said that he was a Sith.
At that, Anakin starts to listen.
The Chancellor. A Sith?
During his break, he reaches out for the first time towards everything he had left behind. He feels Coruscant, bustling from the revelations, restless from the turmoil caused by the move against the government. He reaches the Jedi Temple. The fear he had felt in the Jedi Masters is still there. Stronger as they cluster around a single point of darkness.
And Anakin feels him. Darth Sidious, the Sith Lord. And Sheev Palpatine. His old friend.
The manipulations of the Sith become clear to him and, as they do, he feels the Dark Lord's intent as he sits in his prison below the Jedi Temple. He wants Anakin to know this. He wants him to come to him. He hears the words as though Sidious whispers them directly into his ear.
It is your destiny.
No, Anakin thinks. This is my destiny. No fighting your war yet again.
He returns to work.
The Chosen One repulses both the Daughter and the Son, the light and dark thrown back against the walls of the arena by the immoveable center.
The Jedi have seized control of the Republic, announcing that they will oversee the Senate's activities until the end of the war, much as the Chancellor once had. But the Separatists refuse to negotiate with the Jedi, forcing the war to continue. The clones pledge to follow the Jedi. And the war continues. More and more worlds, tired of the infighting, no longer trusting either faction, break off. They open negotiations with the CNS. Anakin and his growing network become busier than ever. Many are aware the war will not ignore them for much longer.
But worlds are not the only ones to leave.
Anakin has heard the rumours of a growing numbers of Jedi leaving the Order. He doesn't know if they are true. If they want to find him, they will. The first one who does is a surprise.
"Young Skywalker," Master Yoda says when he finds Anakin as he helps guard a trade convoy destined for Mandalore.
"Master. What are you doing here?"
"Right you were, so long ago. Wrong, I was. Fools we were, deceived by a Sith Lord we called a friend."
Yoda gets down on one knee. "To humble ask to be your apprentice I do, Master Skywalker."
There is so much that Yoda does not say. But he doesn't need to. He no longer feels the fear in Yoda. He has let go of the worries which had once tied him down. He can become once more the great Jedi he once was.
The next day, on Mandalore, Anakin takes the former Grand Master of the Jedi Order to the Mines. Beside the Living Waters, Anakin invites his new pupil to meditate. But not to feel for the past or the future. Just to reach out for the Waters. Yoda learns quickly, not in his Force abilities but in how to use the Force again, its fundamental ability the Jedi had started to loose sight of. He teaches him how to feel the galaxy again, all of it. Not just the threat of the dark or the comfort of the light, but all of it. And Yoda begins to understand. For days, they meditate. Until it is time to return to their duties.
"When will my training end?" Yoda asks.
Anakin smiles. "It already has. And it never will."
"On your knees" the Chosen One says, bringing the Daughter to heel before she can strike back.
The Jedi Order remains in charge of the Republic, controlling it through heavier handed tactics. Their robes gradually disappear to make way to full armour. Soon, there is little distinguishing the Jedi from the clones. They are the Army of the Republic. Worlds are assigned guardians and no longer permitted to leave. An empire develops. From his cell beneath the Jedi Temple, Darth Sidious continues to spin lies. The fear within the Jedi grows. They listen to him. The Separatists are defeated. When the droid army finally falls at the Battle of Mustafar, the former Separatist worlds refuse to surrender to the Empire. The Jedi insist the Republic will protect them. They refuse. Those under occupation become 'liberated', protected by the Jedi security forces. Those who were spared join the CNS.
One day, Anakin and Yoda are joined by familiar faces on the jungle moon of Yavin. Obi-Wan and Ahsoka, now Master and apprentice.
"I am ready," is all Obi-Wan says to his former apprentice, smiling at him.
Anakin smiles back. The next stage of Yoda's training begins. He takes on Ahsoka as his own apprentice and they leave Mandalore behind. Obi-Wan remains with Anakin on Yavin.
"There will be more," Obi-Wan says one day.
"Yes," Anakin answers. "And when they join us, we will train them."
"On your knees" the Chosen One forces the Son to his knees, breaking his gargoyle appearance as the full power of the Force becomes too difficult to overcome.
The Republic disappears. Soon, no one remembers it. Only the Empire. And the Jedi who once protected it now rule. Their armours have gone dark, their blades red. Darth Sidious no longer resides in cell but in a throne room where once the Jedi Council sat. He manipulates as he always had. The Jedi believe him, fighting as much against their enemies as they do among themselves for power. The Dark Lord encourages these battles, rewards the winner, undermines the weak. He teaches some but not others the dark powers of the Sith.
And he lusts after the one who got away.
He forbids fighting when he sends his corrupted Jedi to find the ones who escaped, the ones who refused to fight for his new Empire. They must be destroyed. They must find him. Battles are fought on the former Separatists worlds. But the people resist. The Empire is too weak from its own infighting. It cannot defeat and conquer. It only takes what it can. It cannot fight against the hope Anakin Skywalker and his new Jedi have created in the galaxy.
More joined them. Obi-Wan and Ahsoka took their own students and left to pursue their own quests. Anakin heard that a movement had grown freeing slaves in the Outer Rim, fighting a shadow war against the Empire's Hutt allies. Without the slaves, the Empire could not construct its weapons. It was said that this freedom movement was led by a former Republic Senator, who had also been a queen. They called her the Shadow. Anakin smiled as he imagined Padmé fighting to free the slaves, her way of telling him that she remembered him. That she had never given up the fight. That she still loved him.
The hope was too strong.
One day, a stranger came to Mandalore. The Dark Lord of the Sith, the shadow Emperor, had finally come for the Chosen One.
Anakin waited for Sidious in the desert. The faced each other. The Emperor cackled, eager to finally end the threat of the Chosen One who had never fallen for his manipulations. The galaxy would be his.
Anakin lets him talk. Words are weapons for Sidious. He waits until the Emperor looses patience and attacks.
Solid ground meets Ben Solo as he falls out of the vision.
It isn't the desert sand, but the smooth pattern-marked floor of the arena. He stands on one of the light patterns. The day has returned. At the center, robe-less but with the longer hair of the ghost, stands Anakin Skywalker. As Ben stands, he realises that he too is wearing Jedi garb, the ones he wore as an apprentice on Ossus. Both his hands are back. There is no sign of any lightsabers.
Ben turns to Anakin. "Is that what you could have done?"
Anakin doesn't say anything.
"It's what you should have done?"
"Why?"
Ben isn't certain to respond at first and, when he does, the answer is a lot like the platitudes he had often heard, first as a boy from those who had expectations for him he had come to hate, then from himself as he rejected it all to follow a different path.
"The galaxy would have been better."
"Would it?"
"You defeated Sidious!"
"Did I?"
The vision had ended before he could see what would have happened. Ben didn't know. Did Anakin?
"What do you know?" he asked instead.
Anakin smiled and stepped towards him, slowly. He reminded him of Luke in those blissful days at the Temple when it had only been them and the Force.
"Now, you are starting to ask the right questions. Do you want to know what I know?"
"Yes."
Anakin's smile broadened. "Look," he said, extending a hand. Moisture was sucked out of the air, turning to mist. And coalescing above them in a vision. In the vision, Ben saw the Son, holding onto the Togruta he remembered from the vision. He saw Anakin in fear, running after them because he could not bear to lose his apprentice. The mist broke off into a second vision, one of a woman crying in pain. He recognised her. Padmé Amidala, his grandmother. He saw Anakin witnessing the vision, his terror at the thought of losing his wife.
"What I know," Anakin said, "is that I was afraid."
Many more moments developed from the mists, the resentment at being overlooked, the comforting words of the Supreme Chancellor, the hope he had given him that he could save anyone he wanted.
"And I know where that fear led me."
The visions shifted into something else. The Daughter stabbed by the Son. Anakin leading the clone assault on the Jedi Temple. The battle between Anakin and his former master on a volcanic world.
"And what it turned me into." Vader's voice said. He stood on the dark pattern of the arena. On the light pattern was Anakin, standing opposite Vader. And, in the center, was Ben.
"That's what my choices led me to. The choices you made yourself too."
Ben knew he was right.
"Now, can you ask me the question you really want to ask me?"
Ben could, even though he still feared the answer.
"Was it inevitable? Was I meant to be a great Jedi Knight? Was I meant to become Kylo Ren?"
Moments appeared in the mist above them, moments from Kyloe's own life. His own choices.
"I'm not sure whether destiny exists, not even now. It doesn't matter what I could or should have done. No more than what I did really matters. It's what I do now that determines my fate."
The pictures changed again until they became Vader, straddling the Emperor's body as he spewed lighting from his fingers, before throwing him over the edge to his death.
"I think…" Ben said, "I understand."
Anakin smiled once more, pictures fading. Vader was gone.
"Good," was all he said.
The world spun again, the day swallowed up by the night…
…and the heat returned.
Ben was alone in the Tatooine desert, the discarded things of Kylo Ren around him. Anakin was gone.
The young man looked over at the haze, wondering whether his grandfather come out of them again. But that was irrelevant. What mattered now was far more important. He sat upon the ground, closed his eyes, and opened himself up to the Force. But this time, he did not seek. He just felt.
The desert was not lifeless as so many were keen to say. There was life there, for those who could find it in the smallest of insects and larger creatures living in the sands. All generating their own Force. Connecting the planet to the many others around the world, all through the vast mystery of the Cosmic Force. Ben felt it all, sensed everything there was to sense. For once, he thought of neither future nor past. Not of expectations but of realties. Not his, but those of others. He felt the tyranny of the First Order which he had helped spread. He felt the plots of others who sought to rule. He felt the despair of those who, once more, had been abandoned. There was resistance too, scattered and divided but present. Small pockets of hope. And when he looked at the whole, he saw them all. And when he measured them, he realised that the fear and the oppression were outmatched.
Beside him, the red kyber crystal rose into the air, spinning slightly. He extended his hand for it, his eyes still close. It settled into his palm. He closed his fingers over it.
The visions hit him again as they once had, before he shattered the crystal to keep them quiet. This time, he let them in. He saw them clearer than ever before, mingling with his new sense of the galaxy's Living Force. He saw the hope again. And then they converge on a world where the hope fought back.
Coruscant. The former capital of the Empire, and the Republic before it. The First Order garrison fighting in the ruined structures of building that had turned into battlefields. The rebels, led by the one who called himself the Traitor. The former FN-2187. He saw the mask of Kylo Ren, back and whole. And falling over his face. But he didn't run from the vision. He saw himself, black-clad, the Supreme Leader of the First Order, the ruler of the whole galaxy, standing in the former Chancellor's pod in the Senate Chamber. He had seen the vision any times.
But now, for the first time, he believed he saw it more completely, more fully than he had ever tried before.
Between his fingers, a red glow shone briefly. And went out.
Ben Solo opened his eyes, looked down. And saw that the once cracked crystal had healed. And it was no longer red.
Ajan Kloss,
The late Princess Leia Organa's former quarters
The body faded, the sheet that had covered it falling away onto nothing until it reached the bed. Maz Kanata looked up from her vigil, sensing the Force around her as it flowed through the chamber with power. She smiled.
Leia Organa had truly gone to join the Force.
Tatooine
Ben looked up to see his mother's glowing blue face, every part of he as he last remembered her. He felt tears well up in his eyes. And a smile part his lips.
"Mother."
She smiled back at him. "Ben."
It was the word she had reached across the galaxy to tell him, the sense that he had never been blamed. Now, it was the word that welcomed him back. Ben stood, never taking his eyes from his mother's.
"I know what I have to do now."
"I know." She said.
And then, when she faded away, he didn't need to call her back. They had said what they needed to say. There would be time for more to say later.
Right now, Ben Solo had a galaxy to save.