Hello! This is my first Star Wars fan fiction, but I've done some others for mad max and vampires the masquerade. This came about from reading the Atrocity Archives and wondering about how the Dark Side would deal with Old Gods. Plus Kylo Ren appeals to my emo soul.
I live for reviews! even if you hate it, I'd like to know!
Kylo Ren stood on the suspended walkway and gripped the railing with both hands as he watched the preparations below. The newly healing scar running across his face itched, and he was glad his masked helmet removed the temptation to scratch. That would've been undignified, and Kylo Ren was a man who worked hard to project an image.
Below him Stormtroopers and technicians scurried to and fro, making final tweaks and checks on the great machine which surrounded them. Tall flanks of dark metal rose up past the walkway, minutely adjusted to channel energies in a way that even Kylo, Leader of the Knights of Ren, most feared sith in the galaxy, found daunting. To cover this feeling he allowed himself a sneer under his mask, quietly exulting in the fact that this new and greatest war machine would finally wipe out the Resistance. It would also sever the last traces of connection to his family and the Light side, he reminded himself, feeling the surge of primal anger he always experienced when thinking of them.
That anger changed to annoyance as General Hux joined him on the walkway. He longed to crush the man's throat with the power of the force, but Hux was necessary to his plans, a useful ally for now.
"I think we're ready for the first test." Announced Hux briskly, assuming a formal stance. Only his eyes had colour in his long pale face, blazing chips of ice blue.
Ren nodded, not bothering to speak. His heart began to hammer in his chest, and he regulated his breathing and autonomic functions quickly. The greatest weapon this galaxy had ever seen, at his command (never mind Hux). Beside it the Deathstar and even Starkiller Base were nothing. He felt it fitting that it harnessed the power of light and turned it to darkness and nothingness. The power to control singularities. A power no lazer weapon or warship could stand against, one that could destroy whole systems, star and all. Like Starkiller Base, it drew its energy from a nearby sun, but the use it put that energy to was entirely different, and unthinkably more powerful.
His hold on the railing tightened and he tensed as his force sensitivity alerted him to the gathering energies. Just a small test this time, to confirm that the singularity could be created, controlled, and then dismissed. A deep thrumming permeated the facility, and sparks of blue light began to course and gather along the fangs of the machine circling the central containment field. Ren leaned forward eagerly, forgetting even his dignity for a moment as he felt power concentrating around him.
The sparks of light became brighter and more numerous, swirling faster and faster into a flat disk. The facility began to shake and he heard the creaking and groaning of the hardened materials under great pressure. The light and swirling grew more and more intense, concentrating greater and greater amounts of energy into a smaller and smaller area. Only powerful magnetic fields held that energy inside the central area, and Ren knew that even a small blip in that field would allow superheated plasma to spill out and engulf the entire facility, and probably destroy the entire planet it stood on.
A weaker-minded man might've feared this, and made sure he was not onsite for the preliminary test, mused Ren, but he had the strength of conviction in his destiny. He knew he would not die here, today. The thought made him conscious of the ache in the still healing wound of his side, where his father's pet wookie had blasted him. As always, his mind slid away hurriedly from the subject of Han Solo, and he turned his attention back to the spinning disk of plasma. In that moment, gravity reached its tipping point, and the disk of spinning light imploded into a dot of darkness so complete it hurt the eyes. For a moment Ren thought he saw the Dark side of the Force made visible, and then frowned as its perfect blackness was clouded by a shimmering expanding bubble. Doubt shook him, and only his grip on the railing stopped him from echoing General Hux's ignominious step backward.
In the blink of an eye, the simmering bubble was the size of a man, but before Ren even had time to register fear, it had burst, flinging sparkling, rapidly cooling plasma in all directions. He flinched as it hit the confines of the magnetic field and then dissipated in blooms of light. His gaze was drawn to the central point where the singularity had briefly existed and under the mask his eyes widened as he took in the still form that hung there. Confusion overwhelmed him as his mind made sense of the human figure which floated in front of him. But only for an instant, before the inexorable pull of gravity reasserted itself, and it started its plunge towards the ground.
Reacting instinctively Kylo Ren flung out an arm as he used the power of the Force to stop the still form in mid-air. The effort made his side throb, and he steeled himself against the pain as he slowly manipulated energies to bring the human to the walkway. He noted smugly that General Hux backed away further, his mouth open with shock.
Ren's breathing grew easier as he released the figure onto the surface of the walkway, and he knelt on one knee as he took a closer look. Lying there was a humanoid female, somewhere around young adulthood. Her naked skin was pale and smooth, flanks of mousey brown hair covering her face. Fascinated by this unexpected outcome, Ren leaned closer, one black-gloved hand outstretched to brush the hair from her temples, noting the fine-boned delicacy of her bone structure.
"Resistance tricks!" spluttered Hux behind him, breaking his concentration. "Spies and sabotage! Why didn't you see this coming?!"
Anger flaring, Ren stood up and wheeled around to face Hux with frightening speed. "Watch your tone." He hissed menacingly, his fist clenching around the handle of his lightsaber.
Hux swallowed and looked down at the prone figure, then up again at Ren. "You'll oversee the interrogation?" he said, his voice quavering with a mixture of fear and hatred.
Ren nodded curtly, letting his silence speak his disdain for the man.
Paying no further heed to his despised ally, he turned on his heel and with one fluid motion, knelt and picked up the girl, before striding away along the walkway. She was light in his arms as he held her, and he had to suppress the urge to sink his gloved fingers into her flesh, the excitement of unforeseen events buoying him up. Ever since his disastrous defeat at the hands of Rey and the Resistance, he had been slowly healing, building up his strength in anticipation of revenge. And now the opportunity to enter the fray and hurt his enemies was come again. He meant to take full advantage of it.
Kylo Ren watched impassively as his assistants prepared the Resistance woman for interrogation. At least, his stance was impassive, and his mask gave nothing away. But underneath that polished plastcrete surface, his brows were drawn down in an expression of confusion and irritation.
None of it made any sense; if the Resistance had the resources and ability to sabotage the Black Hole weapon, why wouldn't they just blow it up? Why insert some female? Was she a failed suicide bomber? His impatience began to rise as the questions piled up, and in spite of his controlled poise, the technicians obviously felt it, as they gave him fearful glances and hurried through the final tasks.
Finally the torture implements were ready (not that he intended to use much more than the Force, but it helped to create the mood of fear he was looking for), and the girl was clothed in a plastpaper gown – easy to rip, and wonderfully absorbent. She'd been only semi-conscious as she was clothed and bound, but now awareness was coming back into her green-grey eyes.
Ren stalked over to her slowly, his assistants fading out of the room as he did so. They knew they were unnecessary; even the strongest minds had difficulty preventing the Leader of the Knights of Ren from laying their secrets bare.
She watched him hazily, and shook her head as if to focus. Slinking the last step to her side, Ren leaned over her, using his bulk to intimidate her. His impatience precluded any toying with his victim, and he stretched out one black-gloved hand to her face as he summoned the power of the Force, and directed it towards her mind.
"You will tell me everything." He said quietly, pushing at the edge of her thoughts. Expecting resistance, he pushed roughly, and was surprised when she took a deep breath and let the natural barriers of her mind-self withdraw and dissolve.
That's why I'm here. Her thought voice was quiet and hopeless. He sensed overwhelming sorrow and drew back for a second, forcing control over his ragged breathing.
She looked up at him, eyes now bright with sharp intelligence.
"Please don't," she gulped, "I'm here to warn you-"
She took a breath to keep speaking but Kylo Ren interrupted her with a thought blast powerful enough to choke the words in her throat. Overpowering her more normal reaction of resistance, he dove past the surface layers of her consciousness. He expected to be confronted by humdrum scenes of day to day life, punctuated by the memories he was looking for; thoughts of her mission, her superiors giving her orders.
Instead he found himself in a fragmented sequence of nightmare reels. He was deep enough in her psyche that he felt her remembered emotions as well as visual and auditory content. Fear and despair predominated as he stood in her body on a frozen darkened planet, looking up at the cooling cinder of a star. The deepness of space above them seemed very wrong, and it took him an instant to realise that all the stars and galaxies were red-shifted; a sky of blood.
Then the scene shifted and she/they walked along a long dark road to a facility which looked remarkably like his Singularity Weapon. They were flanked by solemn figures, all of which glanced up fearfully at the sky constantly. The sky was becoming darker and darker, galaxies and suns fading into blobs of dull rust. He could feel the cold in his bones, and realised with a shock that she and everyone with her were wearing environment suits. The mood of her thoughts was dull and hopeless; an existential wave of loss which prompted him to attempt to mentally pull away, trying to separate himself from her.
It didn't work, but caused a break in the memories. Now he stood upon a platform in the center of a containment field, naked. He/she looked down at her hands, shaking as she clenched her fists. The vision was blurred as she looked up at the surrounding people, all of them showing great sorrow and fear. Tears streaked many faces. Then one looked up, and gasped, and they all followed suit, mouths opening in horror. Kylo Ren felt a strong dragging feeling; a crushing weight of terror. He struggled mentally to stop her looking up, but he couldn't change what was only a memory.
As his vision was forcibly concentrated on the black sky, he screamed, knowing as he did so that he was playing out this woman's memories. Yet the scream echoed in his own psyche as he saw what bore down on them from above. With a supreme effort of will, calling on all his power of the Force, he managed to wrench himself out of her mind, staggering back against the interrogation room wall as he snapped back into reality.
"No! You have to see the end!" she cried out, straining forward against her bonds.
Shaken to his core, his self-control in tatters, Kylo Ren answered her with a Force push, strong enough to stun her into unconsciousness and make the metal of her interrogation table creak under pressure. He held his head in both hands, comforted by the smooth hard shell of his mask; but he was unable to rid himself of the horror of that last vision.
The sky had at last been inky black, completely without stars. And yet he had sensed a malevolent presence, as if eyes as big as galaxies stared down, pinning his frail mortal form to the ground. More than that, he had sensed that this was all that was left of that universe, that nothing was left except the platform he'd stood on.
Hauling himself upright, holding onto the wall for support, he stumbled out of the interrogation room, his mind whirling.