A/N: Chronology issues may exist; as far as I'm aware we don't know anything about the Jedi massacre, when it happened, or who was present. This is really just a way for me to justify the eventual redemption arc so that I'll actually care that he's being redeemed.
The Dark is patient and it always wins.
He takes this maxim to heart, draws strength from it, and repeats it to himself as the shuttle descends. Five others wait beside him; his soldiers, his guardians, his knights. Handpicked by the Supreme Leader himself, they have taken their first steps down into the darkness and with time, they will receive its ultimate gifts just as he will.
He must believe that because if Kylo Ren is not worthy of the darkness, of his grandfather's legacy, then Kylo Ren is nothing.
The ship rocks as it finally touches down, and Kylo Ren strides out before the ramp has finished descending, his black robes fluttering around him and the Dark seething within him. The thick, humid air settles around him, weighing down upon his shoulders as it has for the last ten years of his life.
Perversely, he imagines it as the last clinging attempts of his uncle, of the Light, perhaps trying to reach out to the last shreds of who he was, but the Light has no hold on him anymore. He is master of the Knights of Ren, first student of the Supreme Leader and the heir to the greatest Sith Lord of all time.
There is nothing but Dark in him.
The temple that comprises some of his first memories is in smoking ruin, the giant stones shattered and blackened under the fury of the First Order's guns. Flames consume the surrounding vegetation, the giant trunks of Massassi trees burning steadily. One falls as he strides towards the temple, drowning out his footsteps with a thunderous crash.
He'd deliberately picked the landing course to bring them down behind the temple, across the academy's evacuation route, and just as he'd anticipated a dozen figures were running towards him, aiming to scatter into the forest.
They stop in front of him as the Knights of Ren fan out behind him, drawing blasters and staves. None of them bear the weapon of a true Force-user, but perhaps one day it will be their destiny to, if they survive.
His enemies mill in some confusion; most of them are human but the tall, tawny-furred form of a Wookie towers above his compatriots, standing above a nervously-twitching Mon Calamari and a beady-eyed Nautolan.
One steps to the front, a willowy human female about his own age. Her bright red hair is disheveled, but her emerald eyes are focused as she draws what he knows is a rancor tooth from her belt.
Of course it would be her. The Dark demands much of its servants.
The mask hides his face from view, but her eyes manage to meet his even so. Rage flashes behind them, and a beam of turquoise light shoots from the tooth. Similar blades ignite from her companions: blue, green, purple, and silver.
Half-trained they may be, but even a dozen Jedi children are a formidable force. Even for the Knights of Ren, they are not easy prey. But it is the will of the Dark that they must fall.
He ignites his own lightsaber, its three crimson prongs blazing into life. He angles it towards the red-headed girl. She is still, then steps forward as her weapon describes an arc through the smoky air. His Knights split off to engage the rest of the Jedi, and now it is only the two of them.
She strikes first, as he knows she would. A simple diagonal cut from over her right shoulder; he shunts it aside easily. His return blow is similarly deflected and he leaps over a cut designed to take his legs off.
They begin to pick up their paces, swinging faster and faster until their blades are only blurs of light that scream and spit sparks as they come together. She fights as she always has: fierce and passionate, fluid grace unmarred by conscious thought. Her rancor's tooth blade pushes against his, drives him back and forces him to give ground.
(When Ben Solo still existed, weak and cowardly, she had won most of their sparring matches. He always held back because he was afraid to hurt her, couldn't stomach the mere thought of injuring her. She would chastise him for coddling her and he'd distract her with the lamest joke he could think of. Ben Solo lived for the reluctant laughs that would come afterwards).
Ben Solo is no more, and Kylo Ren has no reason to hold back.
The turning point comes when she ducks underneath an ill-timed swing and kicks his feet out from under him. He lands on his back in the dirt, both arms flailing uselessly to the side. She's on him before he can recover, straddling him with both legs and disarming him quickly. Her blade is at his throat, singing a deadly song.
"Who are you?" she demands, breathing heavily. In response he laughs, harsh and bitter, before seizing her wrist in a vise grip. She winces and tries to push down but slowly, steadily, the blade is forced away from him and down to the side.
The heavy block of his right fist connects with her jaw and its force knocks her off of him. He releases her wrist and stands before delivering a vicious kick to her face, savoring the wet snap that is most likely a broken nose.
He calls his weapon back to him, igniting it and lifting it before him as the girl struggles to her feet. He knows the instant she tries to summon her own weapon. He's prepared. The scarlet flame of his saber slashes forward and removes her right arm at the elbow.
The severed limb thuds into the dirt, followed a heartbeat later by the rancor's tooth.
Clutching her smoking stump, the girl stumbles backwards and her face is pale, but she does not flinch from his gaze. The Jedi calm is still upon her.
That makes him angry. She is about to die, yet the damnable Light still holds her to its breast, soothing her, protecting her. The Dark roars in his chest, demanding pain and misery to sate its hatred. She must suffer for the crime of weakness, just as all who oppose the Dark will.
His mask falls into the dirt as he takes a long breath of the forest moon's air. Below him, the girl's eyes widen in shock.
"Ben?" the name of a dead man falls in a whisper from her lips, and he savors the pain that contorts her face, the pain of betrayal and confusion. The Dark purrs.
"Hello, Tenel Ka," he presses his weapon towards her throat, forcing her to lean back. "So good to see you again."
Then he burns a hole through her neck with a single forward thrust, shouting with glee as the Dark enfolds him in its embrace.
His knights have already dispatched half of the Jedi children; even with lightsabers these barely-trained fools are no match for the powers of the dark side. The Wookie's bronze lightsaber extinguishes itself and drops from his furred paw as a vibroblade rams through his back. The Mon Calamari screams, a sound of agony that cuts off abruptly when her bulbous head is severed from her body.
They do not have names, or lives, or hopes and dreams. They are pawns of the Light and their deaths are nothing to mourn. He feels nothing, he tells himself. They are nothing to him.
(If Ben Solo were still alive, he would watch in horror as the apprentices he grew up with were slaughtered by his own hand. He would scream in denial at the blood that drips onto the ground, and fall to his knees sobbing at the body of the woman he might have spent the rest of his life with
It is a good thing Ben Solo is dead).
The remaining children - for children is what they really are, untrained and undisciplined - form a tight huddle, but the lightsabers that blaze before them only serve to highlight the fear in their eyes.
One of his Knights moves forward, staff in hand, but Kylo Ren throws out a gloved fist.
"Search for any other survivors," he commands, "leave these ones to me."
The Knight obeys without question; they all do, and as they leave to carry out his will Kylo Ren raises his lightsaber and follows in his grandfather's footsteps. The Dark sings as he kills, filling him with power, whispering to him of his destiny, stoking his hate. It is like being in the heart of a star and looking outward, knowing that he has the power to do anything he wants, that his hate will grant him everything he has ever desired. For one brief moment he is not a human being but a god: nothing is barred from him and the galaxy itself bends before him.
Of course, the feeling is all too brief and as always it fades, taking with it all of that transcendent power and all of that magnificent certainty and leaving an all-too human being behind
Later, when he returns to the Finalizer he ignores Hux's request for a debriefing and secludes himself in his quarters. He removes his mask with shaking hands. He places it on the table near what remains of his grandfather, and collapses into a chair.
It is only a momentary weakness, he tells himself. It will pass. He has done what the Dark demanded of him. Kylo Ren is worthy of its power. He has proven himself and shattered the hold the light has on him.
He tells himself this as tears drip down his cheeks, as a sob rips itself from his throat. He continues to tell himself this as he falls to his knees and pounds his fists into the steel floor. He tells himself this as he cries for Ben Solo, everything he has lost, and everything he has become. He cries, and as he seethes with self-loathing and regret the Dark enfolds him, reminding him of his hatred and his strength, that he is the true heir to Darth Vader and that only he is worthy of its power.
(If Ben Solo were still alive, he would recognize the comfort of the Dark as empty, that its promises are as hollow and meaningless as whispers one might hear on the wind. If Ben Solo were still alive, he would realize the true trap of the Dark, how it manipulates its pawns to selfishness, to ignore others and to only think of themselves -
Until the self is all they will ever have.
If Ben Solo were still alive, he would know that to embrace the Dark is to embrace emptiness, to gain power over without at the cost of everything within.
It is a good thing Ben Solo is dead).