A/N: This whole chapter is author's notes. Skip to the next if you like living dangerously. Or keep reading for a peek into my writing process.

The following chapters are perfectly fine as stand-alone scenes. For those who don't follow the rest of the Grey Order series, this chapter is an orientation on who all these new characters are. Or if you do follow Grey Order, it's still a recap.

The Knights of Ren (aka the Knights of Ruin) began as Kylo Ren and the six students of Luke Skywalker who left with them after the burning of Luke's Jedi Academy. They chose new names for themselves after leaving. In this chapter, they go by their original names.

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Knights of Ren (and ages at the time of the burning of the Jedi Academy):

Juleen = Caspire, 25 (Human), later nicknamed 'Casp'

Ben = Kylo, 23 (Human)

Lonnick = Tark, 23 (Trandoshan – reptilian, sometimes shortened to Doshan or Doshie)

Mozzick = Steel, 21 (Human) … Lonnick and Mozzick are sometimes called the Brothers Ick.

Nera = Nera, 13 (Shifala – simian)

Amasara = Tonza, 11 (Human), nicknamed 'Sara' (pronounced 'SAWR-ah')

Stekaly = Jophesta, 8 (Human), nicknamed 'Kaly' (pronounced 'Kah-LEE'), later nicknamed 'Jo'

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The unfortunate students who did not side with Ben Solo on that fateful night:

Tre – 26 (Fondorian – near-human, hairless/tall)

Amyjav - 22 (Human), nicknamed 'Amy' (pronounced 'AH-mee')

Elldal – 21 (Pantoran – near-human, blue)

Natlyn – 18 (Human)

Triski – 18 (Rodian – like Greedo)

Brep – 15 (Twi'lek – like Ahsoka)

Those who live are six years older at the time of TFA/TLJ and nine months older than that by the time of Happily Ever After. Steel and Nera showed up in Pacification. Caspire and Tark don't show until the later chapters of Happily Ever After.

At the point of the burning of his temple, Luke had been running his school for almost ten years. Only Ben, Juleen, Elldal, and Tre were with him from the start. Lonnick and Amyjav joined next, followed by Mozzick. Nera joined a few years later. The last were Amasara, Brep, Stekaly, Natlyn, and Triski, in that order. Note that Stekaly was six when she was delivered to Luke. She was not a willing member. Neither was Ben, Lonnick, Nera, or Brep, although all of them had reconciled themselves to it one way or another.

There were two major references in Grey Order that I used in constructing this backstory. They are these sections of Kylo Ren talking to Rey:

From chapter 10 of 'Grey and Complicated':

"They handed me off to Luke like I was defective and it was his mission to fix me. He was a tyrant, never happy with anything I did – 'do or do not; there is no try' – how contemptible to expect an untrained child to be capable the first time? How callous to condemn us for failing, to blame us for not being masters and for needing his help?

"Luke's lessons to me were too much about controlling my dark impulses, developing self-control, bottling it all up if I couldn't make it stop. I knew it was unfair when Luke was teaching me that – everyone did except for Luke. The other students would taunt me about it later! He'd set me to drills about patience and show the others something interesting, then criticize me for being distracted. It happened time after time. When I'd complain, he'd tell me the faster I purged the dark side from myself, the sooner I could join the rest. It made me all the more bitter when I found out I was related to Vader. I knew then that I couldn't get rid of the dark side. He would always sense it in me. It was in my blood. Luke was never going to train me properly. Never!

"And Snoke was always there in a corner of my head, telling me Luke was wrong, that I had a destiny worth fulfilling, that if I continued, I would one day have enough power to overthrow the stars themselves. He taught me little dark side tricks in secret and told me Luke would be angry if he knew. Then I woke to find Luke ready to kill me for it."

"I knew Luke wasn't dead when I collapsed the hut on him. He was Luke Skywalker, Jedi Master, the legend himself!" Ben snarled and spit the name. "He was too strong! I thought he would come for me. I thought he wouldn't give up. That's what he'd told all of us over and over: 'Jedi don't give up!' and 'When a Jedi makes a mistake, he never rests until he makes it right.' I told the other students what he'd done, that he'd tried to kill me. The ones who believed me, came with me. The ones who didn't, who thought they needed to turn me over to Luke for Luke to finish – we fought. They lost.

"I burned down the temple. It was just a delaying tactic. I didn't want him to know what we'd taken with us or left behind. I didn't want him to have a house to stay in or a bed to sleep in. I wanted him confused, slowed, and discouraged. And it worked."

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From chapter 12, 'Alternatives' of Orderly Lives:

Who is she? Rey asked. Clearly she mattered to Kylo, perhaps as much as his parents, but his grief was less muddled and complicated than it had been with them.

Jophesta! One of the knights. They have the knights, the Knights of Ren! Desperately, he sought them out. Four lives he touched, scattered on the High Command capital ships, all sedated but alive. The fifth he could not find, but he sensed it merely meant she was not near. The sixth was Jophesta. They're going to kill one of them every time I suborn someone. I have to surrender!

That was a girl. She couldn't have been over … fifteen, Rey thought in confusion, trying to work out how one of the fearsome Knights of Ren was younger than Rey herself. You were all Luke's students, right?

She was the youngest of us! Kylo responded in her mind, distraught. Did you think Luke Skywalker's students were all of an age? The Force is not so convenient. She was brought to him as a youngling, just two years before Luke tried to kill me. Her parents saw her as a wild animal, unmanageable, dangerous. Luke had no skills as a parent and she was too young for him to intimidate the way he wanted, but they dumped her and left. He taught her next to nothing. She believed me that he would try to murder me in my sleep. I wasn't the only one he failed!

I brought her with me. I couldn't leave her with him! She's the one who chose the name Ruin, then Ren. Always a child! Snoke said that Brendol Hux's first recruits had been her age when she'd been brought to Skywalker, that she would manage with us, that she'd learn. He said the Jedi of old started even younger. Six years she's been with me. She's not an animal. She was never an animal. He shook with rage, the dark side continuing to boil up inside of him. He tried to pull his hands away to isolate himself, but Rey gripped harder.

There you have it. Now on with the story.