Subject: [OTL]: (alt. Betsy/Star Wars) Fanged Butterfly 2: Knightcross 3/? (PG-15) From: Phil Hartman Date: Thu, 6 Mar 2008 05:41:55 +0000 will1@earthling.net Fanged Butterfly Vol. 2: Knightcross Chapter 3 by Phil Hartman DISCLAIMER: Marvel's are Marvel's. LFL's are LFL's. Any original characters are mine. The rest belong to their owners/creators. No money is being made off of this. Please don't sue. ------------------------------------------- 40 ABY: Hydian Way Hyperlane, approaching Borleais, Expansion Region: ------------------------------------------- Ben savored the tang of the thakitillo - an expensive, citrusy dessert - against his tongue, as he watched Aunt Betsy check their progress. "Better part of a standard day out to Bimmiel ... the movies always made hypertravel sound SO quick ..." she muttered, and Ben tried to smile. The 13-year-old had suspected someone might try to smuggle him away from Jacen - the Galactic Alliance Guard had taught Ben to be suspicious. When they had to be suspicious of even loved ones, though ... Ben didn't like that. It was easy to convince himself this was Guard business. Technically, the Jedi were under watch, and Aunt Betsy was a Jedi. #If my parents are running back and forth between Corellia, then *any* Jedi are suspicious,# Jacen had explained to the young Skywalker. Betsy wasn't blood. But neither were Uncle Han or Chewie, and Ben thought as highly of them as he did Aunt Leia and his parents, and Anakin and Jaina. Except that Uncle Han and Aunt Leia were being watched ... Jacen SAID it was for their own good, since Uncle Han was Corellian. #'Cept Jacen says a lot of things, and I've just jumped when he told me to. It never used to be like that - he never treated me like a kid before,# Ben regretted. Being a soldier was kind of like being a kid - go do this, lift that, march. But kids didn't have to kick in doors and carve up people with lightsabers, Ben reminded himself - stang it, he WASN'T going to cry - But he had two more faces to haunt his nightmares, after he'd killed those two men during the last raid. #What the Guard's doing is dark ... isn't it?# Ben - feared. Yes. Yes, if Ben hadn't killed anyone in five years, and all of a sudden he'd killed two men - one of whom was unarmed. Just like Jacen, who'd killed an unarmed woman. #Jacen's not perfect. He's even telling me to be ... dark,# Ben forced himself to admit, fighting back tears. That was why Ben had accepted Aunt Betsy's offer. She just wanted to find out what happened at Bimmiel. And she was listening - and sharing ... "Aunt Betsy? Have you - ever killed when ... when you could've found another way?" Ben breathed, looking at her with lost eyes. She looked over at him - no cruelty, just like before - and said, simply, "Yes." "Oh." Ben gulped, pulling up what courage he could, then asked, "Was that when you were a - an - `X-Man,' you called it?" She smiled sadly at Ben and said, "You know I'm probably from another universe. There are an infinite number of such universes - and in each, there's a possibility of some alternate version of ourselves. In one such universe, my twin, Brian ... was evil. "That version of Brian made his way to my home universe, and tried to ... hurt me. In a very ... well, he left me no choice." Ben could tell there was something she was leaving out, but he sensed in the Force that he REALLY shouldn't ask any more than that. Betsy caught his eye and asked, "You're still wondering if you could've not killed those men in that raid?" "I ... I'm not being a Jedi. Jedi find better ways. Jacen keeps saying `we're preventing wars,' but we're FIGHTING - Jedi don't kill without trying to find another way! Jacen even killed an unarmed woman -" Ben moaned - "Wait - I'm sorry, but Jacen killed an unarmed woman? She wasn't even threatening him?" Betsy asked - her Force-presence changed, becoming icy - but Ben knew it wasn't at him. She'd been nothing but honest with him. And Ben wanted to tell SOMEONE what had happened ... "There was ... a woman. A bounty hunter. She ... we picked her up on a raid, and Jacen thought she was an assassin. He ... hit her head against the table ... with Force t-telekinesis ... and I asked him what he was DOING, but he told me to go sit outside ... and l - listened," Ben said - "I hated what he was doing - it wasn't Jasa - Jacen - but I d-didn't stop him - it went on for TWO HOURS, and I didn't STOP him -" He curled up, pulling his knees underneath his chin and hugging them, crying in short gasps - he was no better than - "You're just a boy. You couldn't imagine that you would have to stop your Master," Betsy said without judgment, and Ben looked at her as she gave him a gentle glance. "But I SHOULD'VE! I s-should've TRIED - there're other ways - I g-got a datapad, and found out she was going after the Falcon - I s-saved the other guy they were gonna question - but -" Ben sobbed. "You kept Jacen from interrogating the other prisoner so badly, yes?" Betsy asked, squeezing his shoulder. "Yeah. But Ailyn Habuur is still dead," Ben breathed, the image of her bruised body flickering in his mind. "Your superior officer gave you an order. You obeyed it," Betsy said, sounding reasonable. "But it was AN AWFUL ORDER! Why are you being so - so KIND - !?" Ben begged. ~Because your Master, who was supposed to be teaching you be a Jedi, taught you to be a soldier, and when he did the unthinkable, you were caught in the middle,~ Betsy sent, her outrage at Jacen evident behind her shields. ~You're not dark, Ben. You're only guilty of falling in with a bad crowd, but you're not blind anymore. You're thinking and caring. ~ She left Ben's mind, but he didn't feel much better. After a long moment, he asked, "C ... can I ... ever make up for ... for what I've done? Or didn't do?" "You've already taken the first steps, Ben. You saved that Corellian agent working with - Habuur, that was her name?" Betsy asked. "For now. Force knows what Jacen'll do to the guy if he doesn't get interred," Ben mumbled, wiping his eyes. "And the other two - you were fighting for your life. Or you thought you were. I'm not trying to give you easy outs, Ben, because you're not a little child anymore. But you shouldn't be a soldier yet, either," Betsy insisted. Ben was about to reply to her like he had to his Dad when Luke had said the same things - but it wasn't like it'd been when Dad had said it. #Dad wasn't against me either. I just didn't want to listen,# Ben realized, horror-struck - he'd hurt his parents, hadn't he? As if she'd been listening to his thoughts - and his shields *were* a mess - Betsy said, "Your parents love you. They're just very,worried. They miss you, and Jacen's not reassuring them when they see you with him leading GAG raids." "I can't go back to being a kid, though," Ben sighed - no, he HAD to stop pitying himself. "So don't. Just don't feel like you have to grow up overnight, either," Betsy said, and her smirk almost made Ben smile. Almost. "Could ... d'you think, if I went to Mom and Dad, they'd ... forgive me?" Ben finally asked. "They'd hug you to death. Jacen ... well, there, you have to make a choice," Betsy said, her tone turning warning as she finished speaking. "You mean, can I go back to the Guard, knowing what they're ... we're ... doing ... is of the dark side," Ben said - it was so hard to spell it out. But he couldn't ignore the truth anymore. He shivered, then, and said, "I want to believe Mom and Dad'd forgive me ... but I can't even forgive myself." "Now THAT is the dark side talking. It wants you to think you're alone - that the only place you can go is back into the shadows. You think that GAG uniform of yours is black just to scare people?" Betsy insisted. Ben tried not to gasp - Aunt Betsy was right. "I ... Jacen's been ... and I LET him ... make me think ... I was alone ..." he stammered - his eyes were about to pop out of his head - Jacen wasn't just sick. He wasn't just dark. He was trying to CORRUPT Ben. Betsy looked at him with obvious fear, and said, "Wait - Ben -" "He smacked an unarmed woman to death in a holding cell with the Force! And he looked - confused - after he did it - like he flew off the handle!" Ben blurted - he'd thought he was cried out. Realizing your idol was becoming the next Vader had a way of turning the tears back on, though. Ben pulled his knees up under his chin again, then shuddered, letting the tears come - this time, he felt like he had a reason to cry. "We can't just - can we try and save him?" he finally whispered to Betsy, as she took a deep breath. "'Do or do not, there is no try,'" Betsy quoted, but the words of wisdom didn't comfort him much. "But we'll do our best, Ben. I promise." He nodded, then curled up - it was late on Coruscant by now, his body clock attuned to its rhythms. Ben felt a cloak be wrapped around him, and drifted off as the stars flickered by. Something else wrapped his mind - not intruding - and for once, there were no nightmares. ------------------------------------------- Betsy finished her empathic shielding of Ben's mind - stang, he deserved more ... #I can't bloody well do more than that. Not without Luke and Mara getting involved, and I didn't want to trick him into going to them. He has to want to go home ...# she reflected,checking the ship's progress - nearing Wayland. At least Ben was safe, for the moment - not only from Jacen, but from the dark side. The boy had realized he'd been tricked into accepting fascism, and he'd chosen the light - he wanted to try and atone, even wanting to try and help Jacen. The battle was never really over, but Ben Skywalker had at least learned the rules of engagement. #And where was I? Off in the bloody Unknown Regions, karking feeling sorry for myself. I swore the day he was born that I'd protect him - the closest thing this galaxy has to a godparent, and I ran off to try and find my bloody homeworld,# Betsy thought, looking over at the sleeping boy. He looked so young, especially with the buzzcut. He'd remind Betsy of Franklin, if Ben were blond. #Except that Ben, at least, can't rend the fabric of reality ...# Which she very much wanted to do to Jacen - #No. He's stupid, intentionally self-blinding, more than a bit emotionally off his nut, and mainlining the dark side like a spice addict turned loose on Kessel. Killing him would be ... dark, # Betsy thought, shoving down her OWN anger. #And to think Jacen was so bloody quiet during the Vong War ...# ********************************** 25.5 ABY: Dantooine, Outer Rim: ------------------------------------------------ The carnage had been ... unspeakable. #It's like thousands of Logans fought thousands of Creeds,# Betsy thought, horror-struck at the magnitude of the calamity. She'd gotten the basics of listening to the Force down, and her experience with her telekinesis had flooded back refreshingly quickly, in the two months since Sernpidal. Betsy had even exulted in learning how to fly an X-Wing ... just in time for the Yuuzhan Vong to invade again, after striking at Helska IV. They were biotech users, utterly hating machines and taking slaves - many of whom were bloodily sacrificed to "gods" of obscene purpose. Almost as terrible was the fact that the self-mutilating extragalactic freaks were practically invisible in the Force. But Betsy had been able to mindscan - and mindfry - the Vong quite easily. The coincidence of her arrival in this timeline, and her seemingly unique ability to assault the Vong, had been a little too cute for her comfort. She'd submitted to Force knew how many tests and questions from New Republic Intelligence and the Jedi Council, even as she'd studied Force techniques with Master Tionne and lightsaber styles with the Solo twins and Anakin. Despite being almost twice as old as Han and Leia's children, Betsy didn't mind being dumped in with the junior class of Jedi. She was appreciative that the Jedi were even taking her seriously, given how ... disturbing her news had been about Anakin Skywalker. #The whole family seems cursed - the elder Anakin turned on the Jedi and lost his wife, then died more than 20 years later after only moments with his son. And a generation later, the galaxy's facing the worst war they've seen since Palpatine,# Betsy sighed. The Yuuzhan Vong thrusts at Dubrillion and Dantooine had been horribly costly in numbers of New Republic soldiers and materiel. The Jedi had even had losses - the Twi'lek Daeshara'cor - and it had been the first blooding of the "Young Jedi Knights" in widespread combat. She adjusted her robes, trying to ignore the burning mounds of corpses - there was just no way they could bury this many dead Republic, Vong and Chazrak, or Vong slave-reptoid, bodies, and still maintain the watch on Dantooine. The Vong were not about to stop. And the Jedi had to try and lead the counterstrikes. #Even after I warned them about Order 66 ...# Betsy worried - enough. She centered herself in the Force, trying to ignore the lingering dark ripples from the mass deaths the battle had caused, and followed her Force-sense of the Solo children as they waited near Daeshara'cor's marker. "Betsy," Jaina - her frequent sparring partner, and one of her quickest friends among the younger Jedi - called, her arm around Anakin Solo's shoulder. The boy had been crying again ... "Jaina. Anakin ... she died fighting against oppression. You can't blame yourself," Betsy tried to comfort the youngest Solo. Anakin - barely 15, and so frightfully young to have to witness this horror - gave Betsy a quick glare before his expression grew morose again. "I'm sorry - you're right - it's just so painful - the Force is HURTING, and we can't stop -" he trailed off. A ripple of disapproval radiated over them, and Betsy steeled herself as Jacen - 17, the intellectual of the trio, and struggling with the weight of the battle himself - walked over from a speeder bike. "The Falcon's loaded. Uncle Luke is gathering us on Yavin IV for a conclave ... which we should've done before now," he trailed off, avoiding Anakin's glare. "You want to stanging navel-gaze when the Vong are gonna keep pushing through the Outer Rim!? Jace, for Force's sake, we almost lost Chewie, and now Daeshara'cor - Aunt Mara's getting sicker, and it's probably because of the Vong! We have to ACT!" Anakin snapped, pulling free of Jaina - Betsy flashed back to a mental image of the first Anakin, arguing with Obi-Wan ... "And what? Cause more of a rift in the Force? We're *feeding* the dark side, Anakin! We fly off the handle and swing our `sabers, but to what end?" Jacen shot back. "So you want to run," Anakin demanded. A wave of - RAGE - poured out of Jacen as he pointed at a scar underneath his cheek and bellowed, "Does that slave-seed implant scar LOOK like I ran at Belkadan!? I kriffing TRIED to fight, and I almost ended up LOBOTOMIZED! The Vong can't be sensed in the Force, except by Ms. Braddock, and Uncle Luke had to save me! We're NOT READY FOR THIS, and using the Force like a hydrospanner isn't going to fix things!" "Maybe you're not ready. I am - not for Knighthood, I know, but I can fight. And I'll keep fighting, even if I have to run," Anakin hissed - he was admirably keeping his emotions in check, Betsy admitted. Of course, that just meant the dark side might simmer and fester in him ... The younger Solo stormed off, while Jacen listened to Jaina mutter something at him before she followed Anakin to their waiting speeder bikes. After a long silence, Jacen glanced over at Betsy, who walked over with a faint, sad smile. "We used to be `Jasa,' `Jaya,' and `Ani.' Now all we seem to do is scream at each other, while Jaina snipes at Mom between shooting down Vong `skips," Jacen lamented. "And you're not nearly so calm as you pretend to be. I know about your empathy, Jacen - your gift with animals, your kind heart. I've sensed it when we meditate at the Temple," Betsy said, trying to be helpful ... Jacen smiled bitterly, fighting back tears, and said, "I thought you were a charlatan, a Trandoshan-oil saleswoman, when you landed in our laps. But you unlocked my grandmother's fate, and you try to help us ... you've done more for the war effort than I can even dream." A sudden gust of pain washed over Betsy's shields, and she reached for Jacen's shoulder - "Force ... Jacen, you're in AGONY, aren't you? This much death - Anakin's not sensitive in the same way you are ..." Betsy realized, horrified - If she'd been almost buried underneath telepathically sensing death-cries, AND dealing with raw bursts of the Force vanishing into death, how much worse was it for a boy of Jacen's compassion who'd been attuned to the Force almost since birth? "He thinks it's a club, a blaster. I want to try and understand it ... if we could just understand why you can sense the Vong, and we can't -"Jacen trailed off, wiping his tears and trying to be so typically teenaged male it was maddening. He shrugged off Betsy's outstreched arms, managed a smile, and said, "Guess your telepathy's a different frequency than the Force, after all - sorry to drop this load on you. We'd better get back ..." "Jacen, you're not alone. I know we've only known each other for a matter of months, but your family's accepted me. Let me try to help," Betsy offered. Jacen just sighed, replying, "I need to try and find this answer by myself, Betsy. Just ... thank you." He boarded his speeder bike and took off, leaving Betsy by herself near Daeshara'cor's marker. #No, even a different galaxy can't un-stubborn teenaged brothers ...# she admitted, shaking her head. *********************************** She stirred from the memory - almost 15 years gone. #I had to adapt to a totally different concept - the idea of other countries being distant was so quaint, compared to other *planets* being within reach. So many different species ... and the Solo/Skywalker dynamics ...# Betsy recalled, checking the "odometer" on the dashboard. Hyperspace travel was measured both by light-years and by travel time; a properly-functioning `drive could get one from Endor to the Corporate Sector in weeks, if you were pushing things and rotated shifts to check the navicomp to adjust for hyperspace anomalies. More realistically, it took months to cross the entire mapped three-quarters of the galaxy. Betsy had gotten used to the hum of the `drive, more as a sleep aid, but traveling with just an astromech meant she'd had to relearn self-reliance on her mapping missions, between Jedi Order duties. After the Vong War had ended early in 28 ABY - Ebaq 9 had crushed the Vong fleet, and her own particular "interference" on Coruscant/Yuuzhan'tar, with Ganner and Jacen, had sped things up - Betsy had been awarded a bit more freedom than most Knights. She'd been allowed to keep the shuttle she'd "liberated" from some Peace Brigade collaborators who'd sold Jedi to the Vong. After Anakin and Artoo helped her rework the Angel's Wing, Betsy had started searching the Unknown Regions for signs of Earth. Things weren't quite so cheery after she'd returned from her first year-long probe into the galactic frontier. The Galactic Alliance that had replaced the fallen "New Republic" was still fragile, and Luke was up to his neck in orphaned Force-sensitive younglings of all species. Ossus had been remade as the new Jedi Academy world, while the Temple on Coruscant had become a garish monument to the post-War wellspring of hope for peace. Betsy still smiled at her naiivete when she recalled tapping Tionne Solusar on the shoulder amidst a crowd of shouting, laughing and occasionally crying children, and asking, "How can I help?" #That was 29 ABY, and I wound up with my first Padawan ...# K'urod Var-Tasik had not been what Betsy had been expecting in a Padawan. 13 at the time they'd met, the Zabrak boy had been ... hard to motivate. And her prejudices hadn't helped ... #I kept thinking I was training literally the next Darth Maul, just because he was a Zabrak,# Betsy thought, activating the holoprojector in the "dashboard." The static image of Betsy in her first Master's robes, with a half-smiling K'urod standing beside her with his black hair cut short and wearing a Padawan robe, brought a smile to her lips. #If we hadn't worked our issues out on the trip to Rhen Var, Force knows what might've become of us both,# Betsy recalled, shaking her head. She really owed K'urod a call ... #After we get Jacen sorted out, and Ben's safe. Then I'll go look for K'urod,# Betsy rationalized. Ben mumbled in his sleep, and she did a careful probe of his thoughts - no, the compulsion keeping the memories at bay was still holding. She wouldn't have tampered like that, but he desperately needed dreamless rest. Betsy smiled at the memory of rocking Ben when he was a tiny boy, on Eclipse Station in the Maw ring of black holes, the Force singing through them - at least, until Ben had become afraid of the pain in the Force from the massive casualties from the Vong War. #If we'd shielded him better, he wouldn't have withdrawn from the Force. If he hadn't withdrawn, Jacen wouldn't have had a reason to offer to teach him. But what caused Jacen to TWIST suddenly? Four years, and there were no signs of him falling,# she tried to understand. She knew what the answer was, of course. #Regardless of what Vergere did for Mara, she twisted Jacen with her `there's no dark side' kark. Those five years criss-crossing the galaxy after the war didn't help matters. Nor did his recklessness during the Dark Nest mess ...# Betsy thought, sighing. #And it all started at Myrkr.# -------------------------------------------- tbc ...