A new vision came to him, rushing out of the void to fill his mind.

Lightning. The Dark Lord on one knee before hint, helmet slick and shining in the rain, disarmed. Starkiller's lightsabers formed an X between them, and Vader's neck lay just millimeters from their intersection. With a flick of his wrists, Starkiller could behead the galaxy's greatest monster, and gain revenge for everything he had done.

But what would revenge get him? It couldn't turn back time. It couldn't tell him who the real Starkiller was. It couldn't bring Juno back.

None of those things, he decided, but better than nothing.

His face formed a determined expression. He tensed to execute the man who had made him into what he was: a killing machine, with no hope for anything better.

Before he could complete the move, a red blade erupted from his chest, exactly as it had in a former life, on the Empirical. Only this time his former Master couldn't have wielded it. He still knelt before him, awaiting the death blow.

The pain and shock were too great. Starkiller arched backward, lightsabers falling from his hands. With an agonized cry, he crumpled to the ground, and stared up at the man who had killed him.

It was himself.

Darth Vader rose to his feet. Blasterfire erupted around them. Starkiller heard screams and cries and the sound of people falling. The battle was intense but short-lived, and he had eyes only for the pair in black looming over him.

"I lied when I told you that the cloning process had not been perfected. "

His former Master's words fell like blows upon his stricken form. The version of himself sanding at the Dark Lord's side was upright and whole in even way. The Sith training uniform he wore was immaculate and lethally adorned. The two red lightsabers held crossed over his chest didn't waver a millimeter as their eyes locked.

Starkiller's breath was growing shallow. The fire that had burned in him was dying, as it always died in the end. The dark side consumed everything. Hatred was never a substitute for love, and the price of pursuing it was life itself.

In the corner of his view, lying drenched in the rain, lay a limp, shattered form. He could not bear to look at it. Instead he clutched the burning hole in his chest and watched the Dark Lord give his new apprentice his first orders.

" You have faced your final test. "

The reborn Starkiller knelt at the Dark Lord's feet. "What is thy bidding, my Master? "

"Take the Rogue Shadow. Scour the far reaches of the galaxy. Find the last of the Rebels and destroy them. "

"As you wish. "

"Then, and only then, will you achieve your destiny. "

The new apprentice rose and walked away, stepping over Juno's body as be went. Kota's body lay nearby, and PROXY'S, sliced neatly in two. Darth Vader looked down at Starkiller's body and, with a contemptuous flick of his wrist, sent it skidding over the edge of the platform and into the sea.

The last thing Starkiller saw was storm clouds and lightning far above, as he had on the first day of his freedom, just days ago.

Thunder boomed, and Starkiller came back to himself with a gasp. The sound echoed around him, disorienting him. It couldn't be real. He had been seeing the future, not something happening in the present.

Chapter 15