She faced the length of the large, dimly lit room. The blue glow of the tracking beacon expanded her virtual view. She had gone through a set of light saber kata with the former Grand Master of the Jedi Order. Yoda had appeared in his worn robes with his gamma stick, pacing with a faint blue glow to his otherwise solid appearance.
"Face him, you must, or all will be lost."
"I know." She couldn't stop from grinning; it was hard sometimes to stay in character when she had trained for weeks for this scenario. She had risen through the levels, defeating lesser Bosses, Asaji Ventress, the Nightsisters, Darth Maul had been her first serious challenge. "I am ready, Master Yoda."
"Then, may the Force be with you." Intoned Yoda, fading into holographic bytes; Rey listened to the silence of the room, watching the first snowflakes fall from above to the hardwood floor. She was in a twilight forest, distant eruptions echoed from the planet's dying core. It was Starkiller Base after the Rebels had struck back for the destruction of the Hosnian System. Rey heard the familiar hum of a blade in the darkness that lit into a fiery crimson cross-guard shape. The beam cut through the frosted air, lifted upward suddenly illuminating the black and silver domed mask and grill plate of Kylo Ren, Master of the Knights of Ren.
Rey thumbed the switch on her saber, loading a preview of her Battle Stats in comparison to her opponent. She had worn socks instead of shoes for this mode in the game, crop pants and a loose black T-shirt. She opted for the opening stance of Form V with the saber behind her for a powerful down swing. Ren had no stats, she noticed, unlike the other opponents whose Health Bars indicated green for full strength to yellow for weakening and finally red when they were close to defeat. Her stat bar was green with the saber fully charged. "I've been waiting to finally face you…," the thought that maybe his level was higher than Maul's was slightly disconcerting. She had played other battles where the enemy took more damage to finally show the Health Bar. Was Ren that strong with the dark side? Rey pushed aside her extraneous thoughts; Ren's masked gaze swept over her and he stepped into his favored stance of Juyo, Form VII.
He came at her suddenly, sprinting forward with a Force run; she tensed, unused to the sudden violence of her opponent. Ren swung his red light saber around, clashing against her high strike. Rey felt the pressure of the two blades meeting, burned with the fleeting sensation of a spark spattering her wrist from his unstable saber. They broke apart and she met his powerful side swing with a mid-level parry, clashing only to split again. Rey paced aside as he gauged her footwork. This time, when he came at her, she was more than ready with a fast barrage of Shii-Cho's unpredictable movements. The online guide for light saber kata had said Shii-Cho was best practiced with multiple opponents, but if the practitioner was well-versed in the Form, it could used against a single opponent.
The snowflakes fell faster, the cold permeating her thin T-shirt. She could see the skeletal lines of the trees surrounding them and beyond the walls of her room. She almost expected his Health Bar to show up about now. Hopefully. Rey's arms had started to hurt from her wild swings, strangely enough she didn't remember her light saber hilt being so heavy before. Ren dropped back and she resumed a defensive position, unprepared for his words.
"Rey, join me." Ren powered off his light saber. She watched him warily; the red beam of her saber cast a fitful glow on the floor. Rey swore she could almost feel the heat from the saber raising the fine hair on her arms. Talk about virtual reality being well - reality, she thought happily. Slipping into the kata for Soresu, she prepared for the next onslaught which never came. Ren clipped his light saber to his belt then reached up depressing a hidden button on his helmet. The whole thing lifted clear away revealing a cloud of wavy dark hair surrounding a face she couldn't have said was attractive…but there was something, something about the eyes full of emotion to the jagged scar bisecting his cheek through the right brow.
Ren tucked the helmet beneath his arm, extending his free hand to her. "Rey, please."
She tensed, expecting it to be a realistic cut scene in the programming, then she stopped that line of thought immediately. "Wait a minute…, you…you just said my name."
It wasn't like she had never imagined him ever saying her name - the guy had a smoky voice, a hot voice that did something to her every time she heard it….but …wait. She switched off her light saber, shaking her head. "I must've imagined it." Rey fumbled to remove the VR headset, blinking in the sudden dispelling of the VR projected dimensions of her room.
Ren was still there.
"What was that thing on your head?" He was pointing now, staring confusedly at the headset she had paid a good lot of money for. Money that Plutt hadn't wanted to part with…that Huttspawn, Rey thought darkly, choosing her favorite curse from the SW universe.
"Wait." She looked down at the headset then back to him and again. "Huh? Why can I still see you?"
"Rey, are you sure you're feeling alright?"
"Um…yeah…, it must be a glitch in the system." She muttered, spinning around abruptly to face her innocuous Galaxy S12 smartphone lying beside the projection ball. Phasma would've said the same thing, slipping into her RP role. Unwillingly, she remembered all the times when she and Armitage had played along as Phasma's Stormtroopers. Right…no time to be thinking of that. Rey turned her back on the rest of the room and began tinkering with her Lenovo Mirage projector.
"Rey!"
"What?"
"Are you going to join me or not?"
Rey had begun to feel dark menace pouring off his aura, something that she associated with the Darth Vader projection. "Cool." Her eyes glowed with misplaced adoration.
"Excuse me?" He blinked; aware he hadn't fazed her in the slightest.
"I mean…this must be an added bonus! I wish I'd bought the Darth pack! Phasma has the Darth pack…I'm so late to the VR scene….," Darth Vader always said, "you are the chosen one." Or something like that in his scenario.
"I thought Captain Phasma died." Ren had dropped the hand he had offered her.
"Oh, no, no…Phasma lives two blocks down from here. Her first name is Gwen, but she prefers to be called Phasma since it sounds tough. She bought the VR pack with the Darth light saber." Rey twirled the slim durasteel handle of the one that had come in the set. "I bought the cheaper pack." She pushed the switch unthinkingly, the crimson blade sprung forward with its signature hum. She nearly dropped it in surprise.
"About that…why is your light saber red?" Kylo thought it was a good question since the last time he had seen Rey, she had been wielding his family's blue light saber. The red suited her…he would never say it didn't, but where had she gotten such an obvious dark side weapon from?
"Oh, it was the random Sith red. They had the blue Skywalker saber, but blue's so boring. I like red better. It's funny, but this actually looks real." She practiced a few swings with it, surprised that the hilt's heft had increased. It felt real and not some kind of plastic prop sold by the Disney Company.
"Careful-" he watched her acrobatically twist the hilt, "-that's dangerous."
She swung around and sliced through the cardboard box lying on the foot of her bed. The blade sliced through the cardboard with ease. "Whoa…, I'm…I'm not imagining this, am I?"
"Rey, you still need a teacher."
She switched off the saber, then reignited it excitedly. "I have too many as it is."
That stopped him for a moment. "What do you…," Ren glanced around the room seemingly noticing it for the first time. Posters of...boys plastered the opposite wall beneath the sloping roofline. A large fireplace mantel had rows of framed photographs vying for space. These reminded him of holographs, but different. They all depicted the girl he knew, but somehow she wasn't the same. In the photos, she posed with a statuesque violet-haired woman who he recognized vaguely as a Rebel Leader. In another photo, Rey wore a terrible mock-up of the white armor of a Stormtrooper without the helmet. What drew his attention mostly was the arm she had draped around a red-haired boy who scowled at the camera. Another, taller figure stood behind them, dressed in Phasma's chromium armor. The red-haired boy's weak chin and green eyes reminded him uncomfortably of a certain twerp that somehow managed to make his life hell.
"How old are you?"
"Seventeen." Rey had drifted to his side, powering off the light saber after figuring out that it was real for the most part. "I'm going to be eighteen next month."
Oh, Force.
"I'm not…imagining any of this…am I?"
Rey was the same height he remembered her being, slim with the slight definition of muscle to her arms. She wore her brown hair in a braid, the same pattern of freckles spattered her nose lightly, the same eyes lifted to his face. Rey touched his arm and he felt nothing. This girl…whoever she was…had no sensitivity to the Force whatsoever.
"You're not…and neither am I."
The floorboards creaked somewhere beyond her room. Rey's hand slid flat against his forearm, pressing against the ribbed fabric.
"You're not crazy. Something…,"
"What's the last thing you remember?" Rey's voice was hushed, her expression turned serious.
"Snoke's throne room." That was easy. "We were fighting together against the Praetorian Guards." He remembered the choke hold. "You saved me."
You wanted me to order them to stop firing on the Resistance, when you didn't understand Hux wouldn't have listened to me.
"I asked you to join me."
"Whoa…you're so intense. I've always liked that about you." Rey's hand trailed down to his gloved hand. "Kylo…even if this is a dream…which it probably is…it's the most amazing dream I've ever had."
He wasn't sure how to respond to that. Rey had just…complimented him… and admitted that she liked him…? Maker! How was this happening? He chose to conveniently forget the unusual circumstances on how he had appeared in her room. "Rey…,"
"Reylyn! Is that a boy I hear in there with you!?"
Panic crossed her face. "Oh my God! It's mom!"
You have a mother….since when? And…Reylyn? It was worse than Ben and he had always thought his first name was terrible. Rey grabbed him and forcefully pushed him toward the closet. "Hide! Mom won't understand!"
Ren took one look at the small wooden door imagining the interior. "I won't fit in there."
"Oh…good point." She immediately changed direction toward the bathroom, her mind running through a quick check list on whether or not there was anything embarrassing in there like panties or bras. Deciding there wasn't, she propelled Ren inside and shut the door seconds before Amilyn leaned around the bedroom door.
"That wasn't Flyboy I heard just now, was it?"
Rey sighed at the nickname. Poe had never quite warmed to the teasing, partly because he wouldn't let Amilyn adopt him as a son. "No, Poe went to that summer camp sponsored by the Air Force."
"Oh, that's right." Amilyn's blue eyes widened thoughtfully. She had permed her violet hair into soft waves, pinned by a heavy silver halo clip. Rey had never seen her in less than Chicos fashions for the modern older woman. "Well, what were you doing?"
"I was…playing Jedi Challenges." Rey waved her deactivated light saber for emphasis. "Um, you know just roleplaying for galactic domination."
"O-kay. Just don't get too crazy. You know when I was your age, I was in the Junior Legislature and-"
"Mom, cool it. I know, you've told me about a hundred times already."
Amilyn smiled, "just checking to see if you were paying attention. Oh, by the way, I'm ordering pizza for dinner." With a little wave, she stepped out. The moment the door closed, Rey listened for retreating footsteps. The third stair creaked down and she released a sigh. "You can come out now."
"I wasn't aware you had a mother." Ren commented, having had trouble turning the door knob. Most doors he had ever encountered had keypad entry and not weird round metal knobs meant for opening and closing them.
"She's my…adopted mom actually. Amilyn found me when I was five years old. I never knew who my parents were, but it's alright." Rey shrugged. "My friends think she's mostly cool, but Poe thinks she's nuts." Or a fruitcake or some combination of fruitcake and drill sergeant all in one.
"Poe Dameron is in this time as well?"
"What do you mean in this time? Poe was - well, still is my friend. We were besties until he pulled a stunt on old Armmy in the Sixth Grade."
Ren opened his mouth to ask who old Armmy was, then considered it something he didn't need to know. There were other more pressing questions that needed to be asked. "I take it that traitor, FN-2187 is here as well as rest of the Resistance scum…," he nearly winced. "And Skywalker?"
"No, well, I don't know what you mean about the Resistance. Finn roleplays as FN-2187, a Stormtrooper defector, but Luke Skywalker doesn't exist." Rey watched him absorb this interesting fact, then smacked the light saber against her palm. "Oh! I get it…you're thinking that they're here and you know them."
He wasn't following her logic, but decided to go along. "What do you know about my timeline?" There, that seemed a reasonable place to start. Rey beamed suddenly; glad she had brushed up on her Star Wars Incredible Cross-Sections and Character Encyclopedia before beginning her padawan training. "Well, to begin with, you're Leia and Han's son who turned to the dark side. The Star Wars expanded universe goes into detail about your training in the dark side and the rise of your older brother, Darth Caedus."
"Brother?"
"Yeah, he was formerly Jacen Solo and you were formerly known as Anakin Solo. Then, there's your sister, Jaina. She's an X-wing pilot and the Sword of the Jedi nicknamed so by your uncle Luke."
"I don't have any siblings! Especially a sister!" His eye twitched at the words, Uncle Luke. Although, the second part about being named after his grandfather sounded interesting. Why his parents chose to name him after Obi-Wan Kenobi's alias, was beyond the pale of affront and didn't make sense.
Rey motioned for him to lower his tone. "Yes, you do. I cosplayed as her last year." So saying this, she rummaged among the photos on the fireplace mantel, finding one of herself dressed in an orange flight suit with a plastic purple light saber in hand.
"That's…disturbing."
"I think I look rather good," Rey said offended, pressing the photo frame to her heart.
"Never mind." Ren realized she had missed the point about her dressing up/pretending she was his sister, considering the kind of thoughts he'd had about her recently…
"Oh, and there's also Ben Skywalker, that's Luke's son."
"That was my name."
"Wait - so you're not Anakin?"
"Rey…, you know me…," kriff, did she have to look so sweetly oblivious? He hated saying the name even more so admitting it had once been his. Whenever Rey had called him Ben, it had made him feel different. Instead of the hated name it had become something only she called him, no one else. "I'm Ben Solo and you're Rey from Jakku. There's nothing familiar in what you just said. I have no siblings. The Sith are dead and Luke has no children." Thankfully the man hadn't spawned any that he had to track down and kill.
"I don't understand." Rey bit her bottom lip distracting him with the motion. "I could swear that was all in the canon storyline."
He still had no idea what she was talking about. "So you're telling me that everything," Ren unclipped his light saber from his belt, gesturing with it. "Skywalker, Darth Vader, the First Order and the Resistance are all made up?!" They were stories from someone's imagination, stories like what old Ben Kenobi used to tell Luke. Ren felt the dark side stirring, rising with his sudden anger.
"The Empire and the Rebel Alliance, everything…," Rey said in a rush, "they were all created by George Lucas and a few other authors along the way." She moved closer to him, leaving the photo frame on the mantel. "I know this is hard for you to take in all at once." As if sensing his sudden need for destruction, she kept an eye on her favorite life-size BB-8 plush in case he decided to vent his frustrations on it.
"B-Ben, please don't destroy my room." Rey laid her hand flat against his chest; she could think of any number of good reasons why destroying her room wouldn't help their current situation most of it included not being banned the rest of the summer from using the Ford Falcon - excuse me, Thunderbird in the garage. "Please." It was as she pleaded with her best puppy eyes that she remembered another important factoid from the collectible SW Character Dictionary. It was said that Kylo Ren was shredded. Could he have an eight-pack under all those rags?
Reluctantly, he dropped his menacing stance. It was hard to calm down and not destroy something even if it was just a table. Ren's gaze dropped down to her hand that hadn't stopped exploring his person. "What are you doing?"
"Um-nothing!" Her face burned scarlet and she quickly folded her arms, hiding her errant hand from view. "I was just thinking could there be more than one Star Wars Universe?"
-TBC
Disclaimer: I don't own SW or even Jedi Challenges; I just play in Disney's sandbox.
AN: Disney was spamming me with emails on the above mentioned VR game being on sale. This fic was born from the pics. Thanks for reading.
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