A New Force

Chapter I: The Moments After

Ben Solo never had an out-of-body experience before.

Yet there he found himself, suspended in time, looking down at his own body.  The scavenger girl held him delicately in her arms, looking desperately into his vacant and lifeless face.  He was still on Exegol, this much he knew.  However, he felt the stillness around him; as though he had been trapped in a picture of his final breath.

Suddenly, his name. 

It echoed through the dead air from a familiar and haunting voice.  He swore that if his heart hadn't stopped, it would have skipped a beat.

Turning, he rose and saw the face of the man he spent his entire adult life futilely grasping for. 

"Grandfather."

His throat felt like the desert, as though he had already been dead a thousand years.

Anakin smiled, an expression that Ben had never witnessed in any of his visions.  The Darth Vader that Palpatine had painted in his mind was not the man that stood before him. 

Standing in his Jedi robes, Anakin was glowing a brilliant blue color that shone through the darkness of Exegol.  He reached out, touching his grandson's shoulder, with an expression that spoke everything he had ever wanted to.

"Why didn't you help me?" Ben faltered, staring into the eyes of a legend that had once struck fear into the hearts of the entire galaxy.

"The Emperor," His voice was young and fresh, full of the Force.  "I'm sorry.  But I don't have much time."

Ben began to feel a pull.  It was a sensation unlike the pull from the dark or the light; as though his very being was slowly coming apart as his soul stood beside his dying, vacant body.  Frozen in time, he could feel every sensation as he was being pulled, inevitably, into nothingness.

"Grandfather, I'm scared."

The words shocked even himself.  His old persona, that of Kylo Ren, hated to admit to his own fear.  Ben Solo was different - separated from the darkness, he had become entirely human again.

"That's why I'm here," Anakin moved his hand from Ben's shoulder, glancing at Ben's body and back into his grandson's eyes.  "I'm here to show you the way.  Just as my Master did before my body died." 

Solo knew what he was referring to.  Passing on.  To become eternally one with the Force, along with the greatest Jedi in history.  It was an honor.

Ben hesitated.  He recalled, deep into his memory, a compass that his old master had given him.  It was a puzzle he couldn't solve, giving it to his Padawan without any expectation of him being able to crack the code. 

But he did.

He had never told his Master.  Ben and Luke had a complicated relationship.  He envied the way that he treated his other Padawans.  But Ben was strong;  maybe even stronger than his master.  His unbridled strength scared Luke in a way that looked as though he envied him.  In return, Ben did not have much respect for him.

There was also the fact that his Master had tried to kill him in his sleep.

No matter.

The compass would have led him here.

The dead, distant planet of Exegol.  He remembered that compass now, as clear as day.  He knew what it meant.

"If I go with you, I will never be with her."

"If you don't come with me, you will disappear for the rest of time." Anakin's voice boomed with warning, piercing the dead air.

"There's a place here.  A portal.  I know it."