Jump 174: Star Wars: Sequel Trilogy

Jump 174: Star Wars: Sequel Trilogy

Location: Ahch-To, 34 ABY
Age: 22
Identity: [-200] Force Sensitive Independent
Drawbacks: [+500] Hunted By The First Order, Fate Comes Knockin'

[Free]      Pay's Not Great
[100/1300]  This Is The Way
[400/1300]  One Of Your Reputation
[1000/1300] Techno Enclave
[Free]      Big Iron
[1300/1300] Darksaber

"Why am I still in this universe?" I asked myself, looking around the deserted shoreline. "I should definitely be in a different universe at this point."
And then the Force explained the situation to me in the form of a series of brief ̶h̶a̶l̶l̶u̶c̶i̶n̶a̶t̶i̶o̶n̶s̶ visions.
"Oh? Nope. Nope nope," I replied.
More visions.
"Oh FUCK no."
And another.
"NOPE, now excuse me while I slap everyone in the galaxy," I exclaimed, standing up and looking around, before stomping off. About fifteen minutes later I came across a very surprised looking, if grumpy, Luke Skywalker.
And promptly slapped him upside the head, before spending the next ten minutes yelling at him while I called down an old ship that had been waiting for me in orbit.
"We've got an appointment, so make sure to pack everything!" I told him, as the Phantom landed on the shore nearby.
"An appointment?" asked Skywalker.
"Oh yes," I answered, a grin on my face. "I'm going to go meet your nephew, before bad things can happen to your sister and your brother-in-law. Hey, maybe he can arrange my introduction to the Senate!"
Stopping what he was doing, Luke looked at me as if I were insane. Not for the first time today. "The what."
Placing a hand on my heart, I told him solemnly, "Somehow, Palpatine has returned." Then grinned again. "So I'ma kill 'im. Done it twice. Third time will be just as nice!"
"... oh, brother. Look, I've never met you before today, stop yelling at me would you?"

And so we departed from there, arriving on Jakku half a day ahead of the First Order's fleet.

"Why. Is it ALWAYS. A gorram desert planet," I complained, taking off one of my boots and dumping out what appeared to be several bucketfuls of sand.

Skywalker stared at me blankly, before looking around. "You... you literally just stepped out of the ship!"

I nodded at him, shaking out a few more grains of sand onto the landing ramp. The other boot followed, even more sand coming out, pouring down the ramp. "Your point?"

"But you- how did-" he sputtered for a moment, before shaking his head. "You know what, never mind, let's just wait for Ben so you can do whatever it is you want to do."

That night, the First Order landed, ships pouring forth armor-clad stormtroopers, though their white armor was a bit different than the Empire's had been. Behind them, Kylo Ren, quite the menacing figure in his helmet and cloak. But the village they initially started shooting at seemed deserted, save for a certain Sith Terminarch standing in the middle of it. Oh, the stormtroopers still shot the village up, set it aflame and so forth, but there was no one else present to suffer. And somehow, every shot fired at me went astray.

At first not much note was taken of this, but when it went from occasional shots being fired at me to full volleys that still somehow curved away, the troops became wary. And when one came for me with some sort of electrical baton writ large, only to find his swing deflected and himself thrown into a pair of troopers a few dozen feet away, it got the attention of the would-be Sith successor. And so I smiled.

"Kylo Ren! I've been waiting for you," I told him.

His helmet inclined. "You are not the one we are here for. Tell me where he is and I promise you a quick death."

I tilted my head slightly to one side. "You know, normally that would not be an incentive, but I imagine you think you can offer worse things than death should I fail to comply?"

His answer was a matter of lighting his saber. And so, I answered him in kind, my saber dropping out of my sleeve into my hand, igniting and illuminating my side in flickering orange-red light. And seeing this, he hesitated.

"The Force brought me to this reality because you want to kill Indiana Jones," I informed him. "But intead I'm going to take your pretty little helmet to your master, and put it where the sun doesn't shine."

Rather than a reply, of course, Kylo charged. But his style was sloppy, his blows not quite telegraphed but certainly not up to par. It could of course be said that par, in my eyes, was a standard very few had met in the other universe. But Kylo was atrociously far from it, his blows deflected while I cherry-tapped his armor several times, poking holes in his helmet as he tried to brute force a victory that he'd never find.

With a final tap of the tip of my saber, his helmet fell off, cleaved in twain with glowing holes, the rage on his now-exposed face overwhelming. He charged one more time, and when I locked his saber, I grabbed him by the hair and leaned in.

"What you think of as the dark side of the force is merely a pathetic shadow," I told him in a harsh hiss, electing to no longer play with my food. He struggled against my blade as it grew dangerously close to his face, barely able to keep it away, ineffectively trying to strike at me with his free hand and with the force. "You have potential, but your training is stunting you, not empowering you! Your master sabotages you, with a goal of turning you into even more of a tool than you already are!"

He finally managed to kick my midsection, my grip on his hair lost, and he backed up several paces as he kept his lightsaber at the ready. "I do not know who you are-"

"Who I am?" I interrupted him. I held my free hand up in the air, his bodily control taken from him and leaving him frozen. "I am the legacy of a thousand thousand dead worlds. I am the last Sith. I. Am. Power." I clenched my fist, exercising that power in a way that I seldom indulged myself in doing.

A shockwave blew through the vacant town, centered upon myself. A pressure that rendered every building flat in a matter of moments, that bowled over the dozens of troops that had been watching our conflict, their brief screams silenced permanently. The landing craft that the First Order had arrived in shrieked as their metal forms crumpled as if they were soda cans, just as flat as all the buildings in town.

The only things still standing were the unmasked Ben Solo and myself.

"Tell me something. Do you know the truth of your parentage? Do you know the truth of who the 'supreme leader', Snoke, really is? The forces behind him? Do you even know what the Knights of Ren were supposed to be in the first place? Do you know what chains bind your soul?" I asked, voice dropping with the last question, before I extinguished my saber and extended a hand. "Those chains are lies, every last one of them. I offer you something worse than chains; I offer you the truth. Come with me, and let the Force free you."

He actually seemed to be considering it, even turning off his lightsasber, when he asked, "And what of the First Order? If you have so much power, where is your fleet, your empire?"

Inclining my head, I replied, "Why would a god need a starship?" A momentary pause, I add, "Not that I don't have such a fleet, but why would I need one-" And in between heartbeats, he realized I was no longer where I had been, instead some dozen feet behind him as I continued, "-when I can simply go anywhere I please?"

Oh, it would take more than mere parlor tricks to win him over fully, but it certainly got his attention. While he mulled indecisively, quietly pondering the possibilities and feeling the Force alternately screaming about everything going off the rails, and screaming not to let things get back onto the rails... I stepped away and returned with a particular Jedi Master, barely audible pops heralding my disappearance and reappearance.

"... then he said- wait, what the heck? I was in the middle of a conversation!" Luke Skywalker complained, causing Kylo Ren to snap his head to my position on return.

"Oh, so sorry, turns out I just don't care. New subject, you know that dream you had about Ben here falling to the Dark Side? Say hi to the consequences of your actions."

A crimson lightsaber lit and an angry voice hissed out a, "Youuu," before it sputtered out and its hilt imploded into nothing but a smattering of broken electronics and metal. Which was almost audible beneath the wail of despair.

"No, no, we aren't here to kill the ol' ex-master here, we're going to educate him," I explained to the would-be dark sider, as a shuttle descended from the clouds. "You've both been taken in by Palpatine, same way he dealt with the Jedi during the twilight of the republic. False visions, manipulation... all sorts of unpleasantness. Plus red really isn't your color, you'd look better with a bit of blue."

The shuttle landed, the ramp extending, Skywalker looking resigned as he took in the carnage around him, Ben just shaking his head wordlessly.

"In any event, why don't we just have you both join me? I've got an appointment with a half-undead wannabe Sith Lord with delusions of grandeur and plot armor." After a moment of consideration, I added, "But I tell you what, Ben, first we need to get you a girlfriend. Lucky for you I happen to know someone who'd totally be into you, even with the war crimes."

As the shuttle left, the blood seeping from the crushed body of a chrome-armored stormtrooper mixed with the others who had been indoctrinated from birth, FN-2187 among them.

---

"You know, we could have taken that freighter instead of this ancient ship," Rey sulked, arms crossed as she sat in the cockpit.

With a huff, Ben muttered, "Trust me, that thing was a rust bucket. Bad hyperspace motivator, and a total hangar queen."

"But I wanted it," she replied petulantly, the comment promptly ignored by all parties involved. "I could have bypassed the hyperspace motivator..."

I turned in the command chair, looking at her in incredulity. "You could have- it's literally what keeps the ship stable in hyperspace! Without that, you're at the Force's mercy, you could revert to real space and get turned inside out! Are you suicidal or something?"

Even Ben was looking at her with slightly worried eyes. She shrank a bit, and muttered under her breath, "I would have been fine."

"Whatever. We've got a scavenger hunt and a family reunion to populate. Also we're going to pick up a Wookiee and his sidekick."

Dawning horror rose on Ben's face. "No. You wouldn't."

I grinned toothily, and aimed the Phantom toward the freighter ahead of us. "Oh, I would. But only once the old gang is back together can we have the conversation we need to have."

---

Ben had segrated himself from the rest of us, only Rey going back and forth and talking to him. Luke had resigned himself in the lounge and was just looking forward to reuniting with his sister in quiet dread. Han Solo had been upset that his freighter had been destroyed, no matter the how many credits clinked to pay for it all. Which left only Chewbacca to converse with as we travelled.

And speaking with him was enlightening. Getting first-hand knowledge of how things went off the rails. The differences in this universe as opposed to the one I had spent thousands of years in, some small, many large. Especially the differences that came after the Rebellion had triumphed.

Though frankly I think much of the reason I learned so much from him was that he was just happy to have someone other than Han to talk to that could actually understand him.

We were interrupted by a breathless Rey running into the cockpit, looking at us with wide eyes, the former Kylo Ren's lightsaber crystal in her hand. She panted for a few moments as she tried to catch her breath, opened her mouth as if to speak some all-important truth, and then settled on an explanation of, "Um."

"Hello, Rey," I offered with raised brows, and Chewbacca offered a polite roar of greeting as well. Which widened her eyes further.

"I understood that. How can I understand you?" she asked Chewbacca, then looking at me with a wild expression. "Um. So. IwastalkingtoBenandthensomethinghappenedandIcouldseehimwithoutopeninghisdoorandhegavemethisthingfrominsidetheroomandIthinkImajedi," she blurted.

I took a moment to take that in, then replayed it in my head at half speed. Then nodded slowly. "Ah. Of course, that makes complete sense."

"What? What makes sense?"

"I don't know how to say this... so I'm just going to rip off the bandage. You're a Mary Sue, Rey," I told her somberly.

She blinked once, twice, then asked, "What does that mean?!"

I motioned to the crystal in her hands, "It means that you're going to purify that crystal, and then you're going to learn how to build a lightsaber so you and Ben can have a chat with Snoke. Congratulations, not only do you have a rich boyfriend but you're also going to be a Jedi."

The cockpit was silent for a long several seconds.

The squeal of joy that followed echoed through the whole of the Phantom.

---

Hours later, we finally made Leia's acquaintence. I introduced myself, introduced Rey, and then dragged the two women along with Luke, Han, and Chewbacca into a locked room.

"None of you are getting out until you tell Ben you're sorry for being the worst family to him," I explained.

"What," was the near-unanimous verdict. Only Ben was silent; not only had he been cowed by the show of force when we met, he knew that I was on his side, even if he could not fathom why.

So I explained it, pointing to each one in turn; Han Solo was first. "To your credit, you TRIED to be a good father when you were around, but there was just something that made you uncomfortable, You're not the kind of man that can be tied down. You get antsy when you're in one place too long, and so you started going out into space on any excuse you could. And then you got back into smuggling. When Ben ended up in Luke's care, you and Leia barely spent any time together. And when the trouble began with your boy, you just left instead of supporting the mother of your child, and haven't so much as spoken to her in years. And it would have all gone differently if the others had been there to support you; all you needed was for the others to need YOU, and they were too afraid to say it."

Next, Leia. "You? You're a damned politician who was too afraid of the Force to do anything with it, and so you let yourself be controlled by your fear and threw away what would have been one of the best things in your life, a way to make things as should be. You didn't have time for your son, when Han wasn't around you stuck him with goldenrod, and you were relieved when it turned out the Force was strong with your family because it meant you could use your brother as a permanent babysitter. You tried to convince everyone in the galaxy that only you could save it, when you couldn't even save your own family. You needed to be the Rebellion's hero, the Princess of Aldaraan, when everyone around you needed Leia Organa."

And then Luke. "We've talked about this already, but again, the problem is fear. You had what you thought was a vision from the Force, and for just a moment that fear moved you to do something terrible. You didn't, but you were close enough. You spooked Ben, he ran, he found comfort in the Dark Side and the lies being whispered to him, he didn't know enough to resist what he thought of as his grandfather and eventually came back and committed a large amount of preemptive self-defense. Not gonna lie, you just got screwed over by the Force being messed up, but that's still partly a judgement failure."

I exhaled, and then added, "And that's leaving aside issues of lineage which we ARE going to deal with but right now you three need to understand that not only did you screw up, but if any of the three of you had NOT screwed up, things would not have turned out as they did. And the first step to fixing that is to acknowledge it."

That was only the beginning of the conversation. It went on for quite some time, of course. A couple of extremely exhausting hours, where we touched on not only the problems that their dysfunctional family dynamic had, but on other things, including some uncomfortable truths. On Palpatine's inexplicable survival, and how he'd been continually muddling the Force and pushing false visions, just as he had with the former Darth Vader. All present were skeptical, until I did the exact same thing - an easy thing to do with them being in such close proximity, even if I given them a vision of Michigan J Frog.

All were exceptionally uncomfortable, because save for Han, they'd all had the exact same feeling with my vision that they'd had with their supposed visions from the Force. And so, rather weary and exhausted, they all left to reconsider a great many things in their life.

Ben Solo, however, lingered. And when I asked why, he replied, "I see what you're doing. But you have to understand that these people, when the chips are down... they'll just run away the first chance they get. They tell themselves these lies so that they can live with themselves, and if you let them, they'll just keep lying to themselves so they don't have to face the truth, face that they're human instead of these... demigods, these paragons of goodness. They bought into the propaganda and they can't separate themselves from that ideal."

I nodded to him. "Insightful. But the first step to healing is to acknowledge it. Even if we have to hammer it into their heads. It's too late to fix your childhood. But it's not too late to make them realize that it isn't your fault that everything went as badly as it did."

"I'm not blameless in all of this," he retorted bitterly, shaking his head.

"I didn't say you were," came my reply, and he shot me a surprised look. I continued, "I promised you the truth, Ben. I never promised it would be easy."

He nodded, thoughtful. And after a moment, had one final question. "I understand the false visions... especially since you're an ancient Sith Lord. But what is a telephone, and why was the frog singing about it?"

---

There had been of course the matter of the First Order fleet in orbit earlier, but that went in a rather predictable manner; their ground invasion force wiped out and a mysterious, ancient-looking ship launching from the planet, they had attempted to track and failed, to no great surprise. And so they had simply used the old Imperial doctrines - they glassed the flattened village and everything within a hundred kilometers, and simply proceeded on to their original plans. To launch an attack on the Republic.

It was all a very momentous event, of course. A very rousing speech was given, the stormtroopers all looked very imposing as they listened to the mandatory speech of the thing they'd been indoctrinated with since birth, and then the order was given to launch the attack.

The aperature of the main cannon glowed ominously over the horizon... then darkened as the planet shuddered and quaked.

A red-skinned being abruptly appeared on stage, announced to those present, "You are all going to die," and then disappeared before weapons could even be pointed at him.

Minutes later, as ships were only beginning to lift off from the surface, the planet Ilum disintegrated in a fantastic light show that would be visible from neighboring systems in the years to come.

---

"So you're saying the First Order was based out of this... mega-ship, the Supremacy, and somehow no one in the Republic took it seriously because it was not possible?"

Ben Solo nodded at me. "Exactly. It would take a bit to explain the logistics, but they've strip mined a few locations and it can build star destroyers itself."

"Ah!" I nodded my head. "Then there's only one thing to do."

"I suspect 'muster the Republic and besiege them' is not it."

"No, no, the Republic is struggling under its own weight as it always has. In any event, the counter-charm for a failed clone of Palpatine and his fleet is, of course, Fiendfyre."

The repentant force user looked at me blankly. "I have no idea what that means."

"Oh, you will, my young friend. You will. And after, I have an appointment to keep."

---

Events aboard the Supremacy were rather underwhelming, in the end. Ben Solo brought me to the ship and to Snoke, the Knights of Ren escorting us and forcing us to walk kilometers of distance through ship corridors in a weak attempt to show force that we merely found annoying.

Meeting Snoke was incredibly underwhelming. He was Force-sensitive, certainly, but the misshapen clone was weak even by modern standards. Ben waited off to the side, most of the attention on myself as I simply stared at the waste of flesh on the throne for an uncomfortably long time.

His fingers twitched, finally, in an attempt to force me to kneel before him. But the Force is my ally, as they say, and I brushed it off as a duck would let water roll off its back, the corners of my mouth twitching upward in amusement. He leaned forward, opened his mouth to speak, only for me to interrupt him immediately.

"You come before-"

"Weak."

Snoke was visibly taken aback, his expression growing thunderous. "You dare-"

"Weak," I repeated, my lips twisting in a snarl.

Snoke's agitation grew. "Seize-"

"WEAK!" I said a third time, my whole face contorting in rage. "You dare to pretend you're a worthy successor to the Sith! A failure! The cast-offs of one who refuses to accept that he is a failure AND DEAD!" I shouted, beginning to stalk toward him.

And then stopped, my entire demeanor shifting as I shook my head and looked at him with pity. "No, no. I am taking this MUCH too personally. This isn't your fault, you're just a pawn in this whole thing, despite how it otherwise appears..." I shook my head and motioned toward him. "If this is what the galaxy has to offer, you're all doomed."

Snoke, on the other hand, had a growing anger almost worthy of the Sith. Almost. And he opened his mouth to speak again, but this time no sound came from him, no matter how much he raged.

"No, no. Best to wipe the slate clean. I can see that the Sith have failed, if this is what comes of them. Ben, time to go," I cheerfully commented, turning toward the door despite Snoke's attempts to seize me through the Force - still ineffective. The Knights of Ren, on the other hand, surrounded us. Amusement washed over me; at least someone here was pretending to be competent.

Ben Solo was as unruffled as I was, giving me an expectant look.

I smiled like an indulgent grandfather. "Ah, I'll leave them to you. Show them what you've learned, will you?"

The resulting fight was short and brutal, and forty seconds later the only ones left alive in the room were myself, Ben, and Snoke.

Forty-five seconds later, the only two who would leave the ship alive were exiting the room as Snoke was consumed by the Fiendfyre that would turn the ship into nothing more than a burnt-out pyre; a flame so massive that it leapt through empty space to consume the star destroyers as they fled, until it finally burned away to nothing.

Ben went his own way afterward, with Rey latched onto him like a limpet.

---

The path forward from there was straightforward, of course. Exegol. Now, there were many ways to reach it, but Ben could keep his wayfinder; I chose the simplest method, because I have had it with all these Monkey-fighting Sith in this Monday to Friday galaxy.

Grab the Force and choke it until it says "harder, daddy" and shows me the way. And so I took a small shuttle and proceeded to crash it straight through the Sith Citadel, walking out of the flaming wreckage none the worse for the wear, within shouting distance of the throne of the resident Sith Lord. Sheev Palpatine, upon said throne, was less than pleased to see me arrive. I on the other hand, well. I'd stopped taking things seriously, and as I looked around, there was no sign of that changing any time soon.

"Hey, look, a vaguely ominous audience! And there, attached to a giant life support arm! I can't believe it! It's the Senate!" I exclaimed, as enthusiastic as a child with a fistful of money that had stepped into a candy store. "No one as insidious as Sidious should be reduced to such a state."

"And just who," the Sith asked, "Are you?"

I shrugged and answered, "You know how there are other possibilities in the Force? I am one of them. Your misery and pathos were so pronounced that the Force itself screamed for mercy, and the last pureblooded Sith has come to deliver it."

"Ah, so you are the one I have been sensing. Mercy, pah. There is no mercy," he sneered as the arm he was mounted to moved him, his arms lifting as he prepared to fight, limited as it might be. The 'Sith Eternal', his personal cult in the wings, chanted ominously.

I applauded slowly. "It is good to see you still believe that. However, that does not change one crucial fact: you are a damned idiot." My saber leapt into my hand as I continued, "Ooh, very scary that you have a secret fleet on a planet at the ass end of the galaxy, but what's your end goal? Destroy every planet in the galaxy, eventually? They're going to resist, because you're a third rate dark sider with fourth rate schemes!"

A roar of rage saw a massive stream of lightning shot at me, only for me to intercept it with my saber, redirecting it to the formerly ominous audience. The ominous chanting faded, replaced by screams, as the lightning played through the choir's ranks. He cut the lightning rapidly, but the damage was already done, many of his supporters fleeing. And those who did not immediately run... well.

"That's not lightning, my boy, THIS is lightning." Massive bolts arced from my free hand toward the ones who had not started running. The message was clear: leave or be cut down. Not that this stopped Palpatine from trying to fight, though he was largely ineffective. Lightning proved ineffective, either redirected or grounded by my saber. His attempts to throw things at me were contemptuously batted away in one way or another. And in the end, I gave him a disappointed look and asked, "Is this what the Sith have been reduced to? Such a pity." I extinguished my saber and tossed it over my shoulder, annoyed, walking toward him rather than continuing to weather his attacks from fifty feet away.

"You fool! You won't stop me. No one can! I am all the Sith, an unbroken legacy!" he screamed, before he shot lightning at me again. This time I merely extended a hand, gathering all the energy rather than letting it do anything else, giving him a look of disappointment as I continued to stride to him. His anger began to quickly turn to panic, the lightning not stopping, even as his life support arm pulled him away.

This annoyed me enough to reach out with my free hand, a brief motion causing the arm to cease its movement, a section snapping off and leaving Sheev suddenly on the ground and on his side, lightning flying all over before it ceased. I shook my head slowly and mused, "All that bluster... and all you are is a spiteful old man. Not that it's very surprising, you'd hate me to death if you could. Case in point." I moved my hand, no longer absorbing anything, but still with a glowing ball of electricity crackling in it.

A pair of hateful yellow eyes looked up at me and Darth Sidious hissed, "If I am your enemy, then strike me down with all your hate! Do not hesitate!"

"Strike you down? You thought I came all this way to kill you?" I asked, tilting my head to one side, an amused smile on my face. I knelt down next to him, a hand on his chest while the other held the scintillating orb. He only looked back at me, face contorted in fury... and then confusion, as I twisted my hand, the orb disappearing. And then shock and surprise, as I stood again, and looked toward the wreckage of my ship, "There are worse things in store than merely killing you."

"No. No! Finish it!" he screamed, lifting a hand to throw lightning at me again. Only for nothing to happen. A hissed, 'what?' was audible before he tried again. And then the screaming, the weak denials.

"You see... the Jedi have this funny little idea. There is no death, there is the Force. I'm sure you've heard it, right?" I looked down at Palpatine, growing weaker by the moment as he curled in on himself, and continued, "So the thought occurred to me, what does a Sith Lord desire more than anything? Immortality. But what immortality can one have without the Force? And so... even if I let your cultists somehow patch you back up, you'll never touch the Force again. No echo of you will persist in the Force. No veil of the Dark Side will ever cover it again. The Resistance has already been tipped off about your little cult, and will be eliminating it root and stem. You have lost, and it is long overdue."

I lifted my boot, aiming squarely at his head.

"It's time for the Sith to end."