AN: This is a commission for Jesus over on sb. I play a little fast and loose with Disney Wars canon here. I'm also sticking with my belief from Return of the Jedi that Sith tend to be evil space wizards and only Jedi and fallen Jedi use light sabers.

ooOoo

Kylo Ren strode through the streets of Theed, a cloak pulled over his head to conceal his presence. The rush hour crowd parted before him, little nudges in the Force convincing any inconveniently placed commuters to take a step to the side. Behind him, the gaps closed up as though they'd never been.

It was easy to forget, considering the titanic shadow the Emperor had cast across the galaxy, that he had once been a mere Senator. And before that, a humble citizen of Naboo. Even Kylo would never have paid that bit of trivia much mind if he hadn't felt the guiding pull of the Dark Side, drawing him here from half a galaxy away.

Kylo had never been to Naboo before, but he moved through the streets with the assurance of a man who had lived there all his life. The Dark Side was his ally. The Dark Side was his companion. The Dark Side was his guide.

Commercial streets gave way to a side street that led into a narrow alley. There, at the dead end, Kylo turned to the terminal guarding access to an abandoned warehouse and entered the first code that came to mind. The door in front of him opened with a low hiss.

He entered what could have been a perfectly ordinary storage unit. The sort of place a man would stash furniture before he moved offplanet, just in case he ever moved back. Indeed, it looked like the unit had been used for just that purpose. The only thing out of place was the table in the back, upon which was placed a small holocube.

Kylo ignored the bric a brac on the other shelves, making his way to the back of the room as the door hissed shut behind him. The lightest touch of the Dark Side sufficed to activate the long-dormant cube.

Palpatine was long dead. He'd died before Kylo was born. Even so, the man had such presence that it was all Kylo could do not to kneel when the projection of his face appeared in midair.

"Ah, my apprentice," he croaked. "For you to be watching this, you truly have exceeded my expectations."

The withered face broke into a wicked grin, displaying yellowed teeth. Kylo shuddered.

"While you have struck me down with your hatred and anger, though, your training is yet incomplete," the Emperor continued. "In order to truly master the Dark Side, you must seek the instruction of the ancient one who completed my own training, once upon a time."

The man's expression softened into a smile, as though he was sharing an inside joke.

"I should warn you though, he is not as forgiving as I am," he said. "Even you, my apprentice, must master your temper if you wish to learn from him."

The disembodied head suddenly cocked to the side, as though the Emperor had just heard something. He straightened up and turned his head, for a moment looking Kylo directly in the eye.

"Or perhaps, there is another..." the Emperor said, before shaking his head. "Well, no matter. Though our lives are fleeting, the Dark Side is eternal."

His image faded away, to be replaced by a series of galactic coordinates. Kylo shook off the sense of foreboding that had gripped him and noted them down.

ooOoo

Ixe Gul was an old planet. A hidden planet. Fractures in space caused by eons of immersion in the Dark Side formed an imposing barrier to any who would approach.

Kylo Ren had to sink deep into his connection to the Force in order to pick his way through safely. Even so, he lost a couple of panels off the side of his Tie Silencer when he had to dart between a pair of hyperspace rifts. If he'd tried taking a larger ship through, he never would have made it.

The Emperor's directions had only led him to the planet, and no further. Even so, Kylo barely hesitated once Ixe Gul was in sight. The whole planet was steeped in the Dark Side, but most of the planet merely bathed in the power of the Dark Side that spilled out from a nexus in the Force that Kylo could sense from orbit.

He took some time to look over the planet as he descended towards the nexus. It was a harsh place. Hardly any plant life broke up the stark lines of the planet's geography. Massive mountains, deep valleys, and sprawling deserts stretched as far as his eye could see. While the planet was shrouded in the Dark Side of the Force, on the physical level Ixe Gul was blasted by the heat of its sun, the heat causing enough turbulence that Kylo had to exert himself in order to bring his Tie Silencer in for a safe landing.

The nexus of the Dark Side was housed in an enormous pyramid. Kylo landed at its base. He had no doubt that the structure had been festooned with majestic decorations at one point, but the years and the scouring sand had worn away everything but the enormous blocks of stone that still stood in defiance of the passing of time.

While Kylo had to struggle through the sand in order to approach the pyramid, the entryway itself was perfectly clear. He was no archaeologist, but he knew when he was looking at the Dark Side at work. He could feel it seep into him as he stepped inside. His back straightened and the last lingering fatigue from his flight fell away.

He barely paused in the entry way, just long enough to read the ancient Sith script that announced this as the tomb of Dark Lord Ick'ii. He was eager to reach the font of Dark Side energy at the heart of the pyramid. As he walked forward, it was as if he had been here many times before. His feet knew the way.

He drew to a halt almost against his will a few steps into the inner sanctum. The weight of the Dark Side pressed down on him like a physical thing.

Ahead of him, in the darkness, there was a flicker of something darker than space itself, something primal. A moment later the flickering resolved and a figure stood before him. An old man, standing tall despite his years, his red face all the more severe for its wrinkles. Only the slightest translucence betrayed the man's superficial origins.

He looked Kylo up and down. After a moment, his eyes fixed on Kylo's waist. "Are you a Jedi, boy?"

Kylo's hand dropped down to touch the hilt of his lightsaber. He took a dry swallow and composed himself before he replied. "I was. I have seen through their lies and now seek out the true power of the Dark Side."

"You know, a Jedi said to me once that the Dark Side is the quick and easy way," the old man said. "Is that what you want, boy? Quick and easy power?"

Kylo froze. He didn't know what to say. Fortunately, the old man continued speaking without waiting for his response.

"Quick and easy! You know, I didn't have any old masters to turn to. Back in my day, if you wanted power, you had to go get it for yourself," the old man said, pointing an accusing finger at Kylo. "There I am, my robe made out of the hide of a Zillo Beast I killed myself—and killing the Zillo Beasts we had back then meant something, not like today—wearing my robe, and he looks me right in the face and says that! Can you believe the nerve?"

Kylo came to a decision and fell to one knee. "I would be honored to learn from you, master."

He barely had any warning before a storm of electricity flew from the old man's hand to slam into his body. Kylo gritted his teeth and did his best not to cry out, but he couldn't stop his body from writhing in agony as the Force lightning seared him to his very core.

"Don't interrupt me when I'm talking, boy," the old man said. "Now, where was I? Right, the important thing is, I was wearing a robe made out of Zillo Beast hide. Bright orange, beautiful thing. 'There goes Darth Ick'ii in his Orange Zillo,' people would say. And, of course, I had a belt made from the spine of a Jesh'tar'inth worm, which was the style at the time. Tarinthian belts, they called them. Now, it was hard to find a worm, on account of the war, but I wasn't going to let that stop me."

Kylo dragged himself back to a kneeling position as the old man continued to talk, resolved not to repeat his previous error. He let his head hang down, partly out of respect and partly because of the lingering weakness from the Force lightning. Darth Ick'ii was a true master indeed, to be able to call on such power long after his physical body had perished.

"What are you still doing here, boy?"

Kylo looked up, shocked. He hadn't noticed when the old man finished talking.

"Haven't you been listening? Go kill a Zillo Beast and prove to me that you're worth teaching."

Kylo scrambled to his feet and left. The last thing he wanted to do was test the old man's patience.

ooOoo

Kylo spent weeks on his first hunt. He didn't think the Zillo Beast was native to Ixe Gul, or at least the beasts on this planet were different than the rare specimens scattered throughout the rest of the galaxy. The beasts here had adapted to the Dark Side energy of the planet, allowing them to survive when by all rights there wasn't enough prey to sustain them.

The baptism in the Dark Side twisted their physical forms. It made them vicious, strong, and uncannily smart. Kylo spent weeks tracking down and isolating a relatively small, fifty meter long specimen. Their battle lasted for two days and nights, before Kylo finally stood victorious. He spent half a day afterwards in meditation, a combination of modern technology and the Dark Side barely enough to patch up his wounds without lasting injury.

When he dragged the beast back to Darth Ick'ii's temple, the old man told him to go out and come back once he'd slain a "real" Zillo Beast.

This time he spent a month tracking and killing a splendid, hundred meter long specimen. The old man still wasn't satisfied, sending him on his way with a healthy dose of Force lightning for "wasting his time."

Kylo was weeks into his next hunt when he woke to a familiar presence.

"You!" Kylo shouted, scrambling to his feet. He reached to his side, only to find his lightsaber was missing.

The man tending a newly built campfire hardly looked up at Kylo's outburst. He obviously didn't have much to worry about, with two lightsabers clipped to his belt. When he looked up, Kylo shook with anger at the sight of a face he'd never expected to see again. Not alive. Not here.

"How did you get here?"

"I'm Luke Skywalker," his uncle said, stretching as he casually rose to his feet.

"How could you possibly have navigated through the distorted space?"

"Look, Ben," Luke said, "isn't it about time you stopped fooling around with all this Dark Side nonsense?"

"Don't call me that!" Kylo shouted. "My name is Kylo Ren!"

"You know, Ben," Luke said, "your grandfather went through a phase where he dressed all in black and made everybody call him some made up name."

Kylo just stared at his uncle in shock.

"You know where it got him, in the end?" Luke continued. "He spent the best years of his life being ordered around by some old man in a robe, until he died from being exposed to too much Force lightning. Is that what you want for yourself?"

"How can you talk like that?" Kylo asked. "How can—I've killed—"

"Hey, I'm Luke Skywalker," Luke said, patting his chest. "I see the good in people. As long as you haven't killed more than, say twenty or thirty children?"

"I haven't killed any children!"

"Well, there you go," Luke said. "To be honest, Han wasn't getting any younger. If he had to go, I'm sure he's glad he got to die after being stabbed with a lightsaber and dropped into the core of an exploding superweapon."

"I-can I really come home?"

"I won't make you," Luke said, before looking around doubtfully. "If you... like it here?"

"What? No, it's awful," Kylo said. "There's always monsters trying to kill you, and when the wind picks up, the sand gets everywhere! Everywhere! I hate it."

Luke chuckled. "You really do take after your grandfather. Come on Ben, let's go home."

ooOoo