Chapter 6

For the most part, things had not gone well from there. Kylo Ren had not exactly been any more cooperative during their next few conversations. Luke had been able to get him back into his cell relatively easily with the help of the other Jedi stationed outside. After that, it had been a long, difficult struggle getting him to cooperate, but there appeared to be some hope now. He had seemed much more pleasant in the past few days, at least in that he hadn't been raving quite as much about how gruesomely he was going to kill them all.

Since then they had always entered the cell in pairs. This time he was joined by Jaina. As the cell door opened, the captive looked up and glowered at the Jedi. Luke simply sat down, greeting the man across from him calmly. "Why do you pretend to treat me so kindly?" the dark-sider growled in response. "It's obvious I'm just a political prisoner here, nothing more."

Jaina hung back politely by the wall, grudgingly letting her uncle do the talking. "That doesn't have to be the case," Luke countered. "We think you could be incredibly helpful as an ally, and if we become certain at some point that you are, in fact, our ally, we'll be happy to set you free and let you join us."

"And if that never happens?"

"We'll just keep you here until it does," Luke replied simply.

The prisoner thought this over for a long while. Earlier on, this wouldn't have happened; he would have come back with some vicious retort or other. However, it was obvious that he was opening up, at least a little bit. Just enough. "What are your conditions?"

"That you remain unarmed and in binders until we face Caedus. That you make no attempt to escape during that time, or else we will make every attempt to stop you from succeeding. And that once we are in battle, you will not attempt to strike anyone down aside from Caedus. Those are the conditions under which you will get your revenge." Luke had given up appealing to the light within Kylo Ren early on.

Another pause. "What will happen to me afterwards?"

"You'll be free to continue working with us. If that's not what you want, we'll still give you a pardon for everything you've done, as long as you promise not to join up with the First Order again. We'll place a tracker on your person so that you can't break that promise without us knowing. Do we have a deal?"

An even longer silence ensued. Long enough for Luke to have doubts. He had terrible, nagging doubts about what he was doing. Could they really control a Force-user this powerful? It seemed like there was a scenario where everything went wrong no matter what they did. This was simply the only acceptable bad idea they had.

Finally, the agony ended, and it was too late to go back. "Fine," Kylo Ren spat, "I'll do it."

"Excellent. I'll come back soon with more details later," Luke said, trying to remain calm and suppress the thoughts that were gnawing away at his mind as he got up and walked out into the hall. As he did, Jaina followed suit, relieved to finally be leaving the cell. "In case you were wondering, you don't need to tell me what a bad idea this is," Luke said once they were well away from the cell block.

"Hey, I wasn't going to say anything," Jaina responded defensively. "Although Rey is still going to have a fit when she hears about this."

"No doubt about that," Luke said, the fatigue seeping into his voice.

Suddenly their comms went off, and when they answered Ben's voice came in over the speakers. "Guys, you're going to want to hear this. We just got a message from Darth Caedus."

Darth Caedus did not have to wait long for his opponents to arrive.

Kylo Ren was lead in first, and he was rubbing his wrists where the binders had been taken off him. The Sith Lord noticed that the others kept him well in front, making sure they could keep an eye on him. Then there came both versions of Luke, then Ben, Jaina and Rey. They watched him silently from across the chasm.

Caedus stayed where he was, standing in front of the pedestal where he had found the holocron, across the bridge from the others. He closed his eyes and reached out with the Force. "You refrained from bringing any other… guests," He stated matter-of-factly. "Good. This is good. You at least have enough respect to honor my requests."

"Yes, we did, now what is it that you want?" Rey asked, clearly on edge.

"The Force can do amazing things, you know," He said slowly, seemingly ignoring her question. "We can use it to move objects without touching them, sense things beyond our normal perception, generate lightning, the list goes on. But what if I told you that it could do even more than that? Like, for example, transporting people to different universes?"

That piqued their interest. "You're saying you know how we got here?" Ben asked cautiously.

"That's exactly what I'm saying," He replied, holding up the holocron he had found in that very room. "I won't bore you with the details of who left this holocron behind, but I will tell you that he studied deeply into the ways in which the Force interacts with our lives and actions. He theorized that when certain events play out in a certain way, the Force can bring people who would not normally meet together in the same place. It's all a bit vague and philosophical, really, but there was one other factor that interested me. He was also very interested in the duality of the Force. He said that this place, in particular, was steeped in both the Light and Dark sides of the Force, and that by combining the powers of two Force-users of the two different alignments, one could theoretically control all aspects of both sides. Including the aspect that brought us all here."

That certainly got a reaction out of them. "So if I understand correctly, you intend to work with us so that we can all get home?" Luke said, his voice full of hope.

"I never said that," Caedus said as he activated his lightsaber, the light coming off the blade giving a hellish cast to the room. He threw the holocron into the air, and as it fell back towards the ground he sliced it clean in half with his blade. He watched the two pieces spin off into the pit below, then slowly turned his gaze towards his opponents and, after a brief pause, lunged across the gap towards the nearest target; Kylo Ren.

As soon as the Sith Lord leapt across the chamber, chaos ensued. Everyone knew that they had to spread out, lest a stray lightsaber blow catch them on accident, but there was nowhere to spread out to, save the way they had come. And so they turned back, running through the hall towards the nearest chamber. All except Kylo Ren, who simply activated his own blade and met his opponent's with it, the two crimson beams crashing together with a sound like thunder.

Luke Jade-Skywalker was the second one in the room, and as soon as he entered he whirled around and activated his lightsaber, ready for a fight. However, he found that he needn't have done so; the two combatants back in the chamber with the pit were entirely focused on one another. He watched, completely amazed and somewhat horrified as the two threw themselves at each other, their blades like lightning flashing out and striking and disappearing again.

As they fought, Luke noticed dust was rising up into the air, swirling around them like a stormcloud. It rose up off the walls, dirt and bits of stone being lifted away and shooting through the air. He realized that they were both trying to use the Force to push the other off the bridge, and the psychokinetic energy was making the dust clouds form.

The two continued to trade blows, furiously trying to break each other's defenses, striking overhand and underhand and everywhere in between. Darth Caedus fought with grace and power, smoothly flowing from one strike to the next, seemingly unhindered by the lack of room for movement. Meanwhile, his counterpart was a whirlwind of pure energy, throwing the absolute brute force of his attacks hurling towards his opponent at blinding speeds.

Suddenly, the whole balance of the battle shifted. The dust floating around Kylo Ren started to move closer towards him, and then there was a ring of it around his neck. Luke realized then that it was because the very air around his neck was contracting; Caedus was choking him to death. The Jedi watched in terror as he stopped moving, and then was lifted up into the air. The Sith Lord had a malevolent grin on his face as he put his lightsaber away and slowly turned, moving his opponent over the edge of the pit as he did so.

Before Luke could even react, there was a blur of movement off to the side. Before he could even fully register what was going on, Jaina was up ahead, plunging her lightsaber into Caedus' back. Even more surprisingly, Rey was there with her, and she kept Kylo Ren from falling into the pit below, even as Jaina removed her lightsaber from the Sith Lord's corpse, which fell over the side and plunged into the chasm below

Even as his body fell, Darth Caedus' spirit separated from it, floating in the nexus of Force energies surrounding the tomb.

As his force essence floated there, it began to separate from itself as well, the light and the dark becoming two different entities, and Darth Caedus was literally torn in two. And now he wasn't Darth Caedus at all, he was a Jedi, he was Jacen Solo, or at least the light part of him was.

As the pieces of Jacen and Caedus floated there, they sensed another entity in conflict. Far below them, down in the physical realm, there was Ben Solo, and he was struggling as well.

The spirits drew closer…

Luke Jade-Skywalker and his counterpart approached the younger Jedi just as Rey was setting Kylo Ren down on the bridge. "Are you guys ok?" He asked, mainly focusing on Jaina, who met his concerned gaze calmly enough.

"We're fine," She stated bluntly. It was pretty obvious to Luke that she wasn't entirely telling the truth, but that would most likely have to wait until later.

Kylo Ren turned to Rey and asked the question that was obviously on everyone's mind; "Not that I'm complaining, but… why did you do that?" He inquired.

She, in turn, looked over to her mentor. "Master Luke and I had a bit of a talk about it," She said reluctantly.

The dark-sider nodded, then turned to Luke Jade-Skywalker and the rest of his group. "Well, I suppose it's time for you guys to head home, isn't it?"

This came as more than a bit of a surprise to everyone in the room. "Are… are you saying what I think you're saying?" Luke asked hesitantly, almost afraid that if he believed it then it would cease to be true.

"Of course," The other replied. "I'm the only one here who wields the dark side of the Force who would be willing to help you. And I am willing… I don't know why, but somehow, it just feels right."

The Jedi stared at him, wide-eyed, but certainly didn't protest. As quickly as they could, the two groups said their goodbyes. Jaina gave Rey a quick hug, Luke gave his counterpart a handshake, and Ben Skywalker gave a nod to Ben Solo- for he was no longer Kylo Ren, but Han Solo's son, redeemed and renewed.

Once they had done this, Ben Solo and Luke Skywalker positioned themselves on either side of the pedestal in the center of the chamber, and they started at their work. The two Force-users sat down cross-legged and began to meditate, pouring their energies into the nexus around them, and as they did the pit below them began to glow, blue on Luke's side, red on Ben's side. As the Jedi looked on, the colors began to merge, and soon the whole room was glowing with white light emanating from the chasm below.

After a few minutes of watching this, Jaina asked hesitantly, "Are we supposed to jump down there or something?"

Luke smiled at her. "Only one way to find out," He said, jumping down and disappearing into the light.

Jacen Solo watched all this happen from Ben Solo's eyes. And as he did, he smiled, knowing that in the end, they had all been redeemed.