Star Wars: Son of Skywalker | Book II: The Last Jedi

Chapter XXIV: Duel Between Cousins

He opens his eyes, immediately sitting up, looking around the flames that were roaring around the throne room, the embers floated out of the fire, as they danced around the flames. The first thing he saw was out the window, with a giant piece of the Supremacy in flames as it floats away, what happened to the Star Destroyer? The top of Snoke's corpse layed there on the floor as his severed bottom half still sat on his throne. Jacen places his hand on his head, trying to recover from a massive headache. He then looks around to see if Rey was okay, but he sees a broken half of a lightsaber, as he force pulls it to his hand. He looks at the destroyed part of it, with the mechanisms sticking out, holding a kyber crystal in the center. He then force pulls the other half, as it's destroyed part looked like it went through it's other half did. The lightsaber that belonged to his father, and his grandfather, destroyed. He then stood up and looks around, as he finds Rey, still unconscious on the floor, as he kneels down, gently placing both halves of the lightsaber on the floor, and held onto Rey, still breathing.

"Rey wake up." Said Jacen, trying to shake her awake. "Come on! We have to get out of here!" Yelled Jacen. The ceiling then starts cracking, as Debris was about to fall on the both of them, but Jacen then reaches his arms out, using the Force to prevent the debris from crushing both of them. As it hovered above them, Jacen felt it was easier than just lifting the stones back on Ahch To, in other words, he felt stronger then before. He then throws it across the room as it crashes to the ground, Jacen could only focus on Rey. A Stormtrooper then walks out of the the elevator, trying to report to the Supreme Leader, but he ends up seeing him cut in half, as he then looks around at the damage.

"What the hell?" Said the stormtrooper, as he looks at Jacen, recognizing him. "Hey stop right there!" He yelled, pointing his weapon as Jacen, who then force pulls the weapon from his hands he pushes him back into the elevator, hitting his head as he falls to the floor. The elevator door closes shut with the unconscious trooper inside. Jacen kept looking at Rey, as he then hears the crackling ignition of a lightsaber. Jacen then stood up, force pulling his lightsaber hilt as he sees Kylo Ren, walking towards him. He stops as he points his red blade at him. Jacen then ignites his blue blade, holding it as he prepares himself. He stood in front of Rey's body, as he was protecting her.

"The Force is with you, Jacen Skywalker." Said Kylo. "But you are not a Jedi yet."

"Let's see then." Said Jacen, as he and Kylo both charge against each other, both ready to strike their blades as they lock on each other. Both stare into each other as Kylo clashes Jacen's blade left and right as he kept blocking every strike. Jacen dodges a strike as he was now striking his blade against Kylo's. They clash their strikes as they both block the other's attacks. The red and blue flares twirled around them as it surrounded the throne room. They then lock blades again, but as the red and blue sparks surrounded the two blades, they then push their hands out in front of each other, trying to force push the other one down. The Force was too strong, it pushes back the both of them, as they both fly backwards to the ground. Jacen quickly gets on his feet as he sees Kylo leap towards him, blocking his incoming strike. They clash their blades once more as Kylo swings his blade near Jacen's neck as he quickly ducks down. Jacen then blocks another attack as he kicks Ben back, causing him step back from the blow. They then carry on the duel towards the bridge way, as Jacen then somersaulted towards it as Kylo slices up one of the railings, causing sparks to fly out. Kylo then kicks back the blaster out of the bridge way, and into the throne room. The blades then lock onto each other again, as they stare as the blades were in contact. Kylo pushes his blade further, causing Jacen to step back as he kept blocking the blade's pathway to his skull. Kylo then moves his blade, causing Jacen to fall on the bridge path near its connection to the throne room. He stands on his knees as they then point their blades before one could strike. Kylo then makes his attack towards him, as Jacen blocks it's path, holding on to his hilt as he then quickly stood up, pushing the blades toward Kylo's face. Kylo then jerked his head from the blade, temporarily stunning him as Jacen stepped back. They position their blades as they wait for the other to strike. Kylo then swings his blade and parries Jacen's lightsaber from his hand, as the blade retracts back into the hilt as it falls to the floor, rolling around in circles. Kylo then swings his blade from above, about to strike, but Jacen catches the hilt, keeping the blade away from him as possible. The two held the hilt with both of their hands, trying to take it from the other. Kylo then manages to point the blade at Jacen, pushing it closer to him. Jacen does everything in his strength to keep the red blade away from him, but Kylo's strength felt very strong. His struggling made him intense, making him feel something in him, something powerful. Jacen then pushes his hand farther as a blast of Force Lightning comes out of his fingers, shocking Kylo as he was pushed back to the floor. Kylo was on his knees, as he sees his cousin holding his red lightsaber. Using the powers of the Dark Side for the first time, Jacen felt a raging anger in him. Jacen then charges against Kylo, who then force pulls Jacen's hilt, igniting the blade as Jacen threw a hard clash against the blade, with Kylo holding the blue blade as it gets clashed rapidly. Jacen then blows another blast of Force Lightning again, but with Kylo holding the blade out, trying to absorb the Lightning, blasting his own lightning at him. Jacen then blocks the lightning with the cross-guarded blade. Both Force users shooting and blocking lightning, the whole throne room was like a blinding thunderstorm. It then blasts the two of them back to the floor. Jacen then gets up, seeing Kylo on his knees, and force pulling his lightsaber back to him. Jacen catches it, ignites his blade, and lays both blades near Kylo's neck.

"I see it now, it is written." Said Kylo, witnessing Jacen's rage. Anger was the only emotion Jacen felt, knowing that he could kill him at any second. "You're going to kill me, like your father attempted." Kylo exclaimed, but rage and vengeance were the only things on Jacen's mind. "Do it!" Kylo yelled. "Strike me down! Either way, the darkness lives!" Yelled Kylo, as Jacen's anger begins to fade away, he realizes what he was doing, he found himself in his father's footsteps, realizing that he has become everything he had despised, this was where he understood that night. He focused too much on the darkness, he forgot who Kylo Ren actually was. It was as if he almost fell to the Dark Side. Jacen then closed his eyes and calmed his mind.

"...no." Said Jacen, as he retracts the blades back into their hilts and throws Kylo's lightsaber to the side of the room, leaving Kylo with a confused expression. "I'm not letting you, Snoke, or the Dark Side determine who I am." Said Jacen with a prideful manner. "I'm a Jedi...like my father before me." Said Jacen, as he turns away from Kylo and walks away. Furious and enraged, watching his cousin walk away, Kylo pulls his lightsaber to his hand and ignites the blade. He then charges against Jacen as he was ready to strike him down. Jacen then force pulls the blaster to his hand, pointing the blaster at him and immediately pulling the trigger. As a blue blaster ring shot toward Kylo, stunning him as he falls to the floor unconscious, dropping his lightsaber in the process. Jacen looks at his cousin in sadness, stepping away as he throws the blaster to the side of the room. He knew it was set to stun, he couldn't kill him, not the one person who was like a brother to him. He then turns away and walks toward Rey's body, still unconscious, as he picks up the two halves of the lightsaber and sticks them through his belt. He then puts his hands under her, picking her up as he carries her to the room on the right side of the throne room. He enters as he sees a docking bay, with Snoke's escape ship, but as he saw it, he sensed an army of Stormtroopers aiming their blasters at him.

"Put the girl down! Hands where we can see them!" Yelled one of the Stormtroopers, as Jacen begins to sense a familiar ship flying towards them. "Hands up! Now!" Yelled the trooper as ship blaster fire was shot at the army, sending them flying backwards to the ground. Jacen turns to see the Millennium Falcon flying through the docking bay shield. The ship hovered as the boarding ramp comes down.

"Chewie!" Jacen yelled in relief, as Chewbacca stands on the boarding ramp, moaning his hello to Jacen. "Come down here, she's unconscious!" Jacen informed as Chewie runs back to the cockpit and lowers the ship. He runs back to the boarding ramp as Jacen hands Rey in his arms as he takes her to the medical bed. "I'll be right back." Said Jacen as he runs to the Supreme Leader's ship as he walks up to the boarding ramp, and into the controls, with two pilots seats and a throne in the back, as Jacen puts on the auto pilot and runs out the boarding ramp before it even closes, as the ship rises and launches through the shields, going to where the Force knows it's going. Jacen then hops onto the Falcon's boarding ramp as he climbs onto it, closing it as the Falcon then flies through the shield gate and flies through space, exiting the giant Star Destroyer.

Jacen walks to Rey's body, as he sees the scar on her right shoulder, and notices the red bruise on the left side of her forehead. Jacen strokes her shoulder as she begins to regain consciousness.

"Jacen..." She said quietly. "...Is Ben alright?" She asked as she falls back to sleep. Jacen was lost for words, she wanted to help save Ben and failed, making Jacen think what would happen if they actually saved Ben. Jacen walks across the ship's hallway as Chewbacca sees him enter the cockpit. Jacen takes the front seat next to him, putting one of his hands over his face, now knowing that Ben was gone, or if he was even in there at all.