Author's Note: While links are eaten by this site, please type "I have read a very early storyboard for Episode IX" into your search engine of choice to see the supposed leak upon which this fic is based. Some of it, of course, is my own… er… interpretation. Hopefully those parts are distinguishable from the rest. If not, that says worse things about the leaked plotline than this parody.
(Jacen Solo, for those unfamiliar with Legends, was Ben Solo's counterpart as Han and Leia's son who fell to the Dark Side.)
Before heading into the fic, I should note I am not anti-Reylo, just… anti-whatever-horrid-mess-was-in-that-leak. One hopes it's either fake or missing massive amounts of context.
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Five years after the annihilation of Hosnian Prime, the galaxy had come to the conclusion that they had it coming. After all, the First Order had excellent costuming, Emperor Kylo Ren looked good in swim trunks, and inexplicably a bunch of ragtag neo-Imperials stuck in the backwaters of the galaxy had pulled enormous amounts of resources out of nowhere. That was surely just a testimony to the First Order's discipline and efficiency, and not an enormous red flag or anything.
In other news, the people of Wizarding Britain were throwing a massive celebration over no longer being the stupidest society in popular culture.
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The talented young Plott'oken languished in her cell, weak from her endless torments by the First Order. If only someone could rescue her! Then she could guide them through the Unknown Regions, and reveal to them the secret of –
The door slid open, and two human males came through. "Look, I know what you're thinking," the lighter-skinned one said. "We already did Episode IV back in The Force Awakens."
"But, I mean, why give up a good shtick?" added the darker-skinned one.
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"–and so, why are we even fighting? I mean, the First Order's conquest was swift and brutal, but maybe they've got a point when they say a few sacrifices have to be made. Things have been pretty nice since the new Emperor took over. A hawkbat in every pot, a speeder in every garage, and –"
"Pardon me," Rey said through gritted teeth as she waved off Spineless Resistance Member #1138, "but I need to go see to my duties as manager of the current Force-user refugee crisis." Turning on her heel, she strode off until she had arrived at one of the temporary holding areas for the displaced Force-users.
Yes, Emperor Kylo Ren had decided that the first Jedi Purge was such a great idea that, even though there was no longer an actual Jedi Order to purge, he needed a new one. She shook her head as she looked at the shell-shocked refugees of all ages and species. Some of the old ones looked so worn, and lay so still as they slept, that she knew they lived only by sensing their presence in the Force. A stab of anger went through her as she saw a one-armed, freshly-scarred woman attempting to calm a wailing infant. Were these the "sacrifices" others excused? A systematic campaign of extermination, for no other reason than these people had dared to touch the Force? Had the principled Resistance lost their will to fight the moment the First Order's atrocities no longer directly touched them–
Her Force Skype started going off, and she hastily exited the makeshift refugee camp in favor of fleeing to a secluded area. "Hello, Rey," Kylo Ren said, manifesting in front of her the moment she had locked the door behind her. "I'd ask what you were wearing, but I can see that for myself. I suppose Uncle Luke really did have some useful tricks. I'm afraid I still don't see what he saw in sloth milk, though…"
"Kylo!" she hissed. "Not at work!"
He only smirked. "That's not what you said last n–"
"And besides, you're a genocidal maniac who killed your own father so you could be a proper darksider, killed the master you were trying to be a proper darksider for in the first place, and led the First Order to galactic conquest!" she snapped. "I really don't give a damn about your tragic childhood! What about all the tragic childhoods you've caused?! Why don't they matter?"
In response, he ripped off his shirt.
"Your flawless abs do not excuse a fascist dictatorship!"
"No, my flawless pecs do," he said, flexing.
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"Where are you taking us?" Finn asked, gritting his teeth as the rough ride down jostled the ship they had commandeered. Poe licked his lips and tried to find a solid place to land… any solid place to land. At least the last time there was an ocean planet in this series, there'd been a solid platform!
"This is the dark secret of the First Order," Plott'oken explained, "a world that was once at the heart of an ancient and unimaginably alien civilization…"
"What were they called?"
"The Legends fandom."
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The locked room was silent. As Rey lay back and looked at the ceiling, Kylo Ren rolled up the script, lit the end, and began huffing it.
"I just thought that, if we actually got it on, you'd be. You know. Redeemed," she said at last. "Or I'd have gone to the Dark Side. But I'm actually making Padmé the second most pitiful woman in these films, because I'm crying about you going down a path I cannot follow when we started this romance with you as a Vader impersonator!"
"Babe, will you stop complaining?" he drawled, blowing out smoke rings. "You're killing my buzz…"
"I just honestly can't figure out," she snarled, "how I am supposed to be having this great secret romance with you when I am teaching and protecting the same people you are trying to exterminate! I mean, the only way this could be worse is if you were surpassing the realms of human evil and doing something ludicrously fantasy-esque, like powering your empire with the screaming souls of your victims."
Kylo Ren ripped the still-smoldering script out of his mouth, crumpled it into a ball, and began scrunching it in his hands. "Sugar? Honeybun? I'm sorry, I'm so sorry. Can't hear a word you're saying. I'm breaking up," he said, making crackling noises with the paper. "Snookums? I love you. I'm just so sorry. There's the worst static on this Force line."
As he faded out of the air beside her, Rey narrowed her eyes. "Funny," she said. "I wasn't having any reception issues."
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"I can't believe it!" Finn gasped. "They're powering their empire with the screaming souls of their victims!"
Poe kept his blaster at hand as they prowled down the corridors of the Far Storge. It couldn't possibly be the Star Forge because the superweapon that powered itself by siphoning energy off a star was two episodes ago. "Keep an eye out," he growled. "Another KOTOR reference could be just around the corner."
As though in answer, a blast door hissed open, and a bald weirdo in a terrible costume came charging out, crimson lightsaber in hand.
"Wait!" Finn shouted as the Dark Jedi raised his weapon.
"What?"
"Honestly, Kylo, I can understand forgoing the jaw prosthesis, it just adds too much hassle to a quick Darth Malak cosplay – but seriously, how could you forget the blue tattoos? You could just draw them on with makeup and wash it off later."
"I didn't want to be confused for that kid from The Last Airbender," Kylo Ren grumbled, lowering his weapon.
At that point, Rey materialized beside him. "Kylo! How could you? This is an unforgivable abomination!"
"Rey!" he shouted back, whirling to block her lightsaber swing. "How did you find out Soylent Green was made of people?"
She frowned between strikes. "Wait, what? I was talking about that haircut. How do you intend to be a bad-boy sex symbol without flowing ebony tresses?"
"Oh, um, that," he said lamely. "Look, Rey, I've been thinking, and it's time for me to grow up." He blocked and parried. "I'm a Dark Lord, and I have to comply with industry standards. Hair, or lack thereof, included. Just look at the Dark Lords before me. Snoke, Palpatine, my grandfather, Voldemort, Lex Luthor…"
She threw a flurry of stabs at him, each of which he blocked only milliseconds before the sizzling blade would have made contact with his face. "Then you are lost!" she spat. "And to think, I have a five-year-old child with you."
The universe made a faint screeching noise – or perhaps that was the sound of Finn, Poe, and Plott'oken blowing up power conduits in the background. "Wait, what?"
"Yes, I am your baby-mama," she declared. "Search your feelings. You know it to be true."
"NOOOOOO!" Kylo Ren swung his lightsaber at her, only for a hand to seize him by the scruff of his neck and wrench him around to see –
"That's no way to treat the mother of my grandchild!" Leia snapped, waving a finger in his face. "Oy vey, all these years I ask when I'll be a grandmother, and always 'Not now, not now, Mama, I'm ruling an Empire.' Not a thought for your old mother, hmm? Why couldn't you be more like Jacen? Now there was a good son. Made me very proud – before his midlife crisis turned him to the Dark Side, anyway. But you, you schlemiel? Going directly from your teenage angst into a midlife crisis, what a shame, what will the neighbors think? So many years I've fought for the galaxy, and all for this? Bah! Rey's a nice girl, why can't you marry her? Even my father got a secret marriage before fussing about with all this Dark Lord silliness! But you insist in Force Skyping in sin and leaving my poor grandchild a bastard, you no-good layabout–"
As Kylo Ren curled into the fetal position, the others made good their escape. "Why?" he wailed as his mother continued to harangue him and insist that he give her more grandchildren, lest this one end up childless like Uncle Luke. "Why does this happen to me? Who told them about this place?"
From high orbit, the mole cackled and rubbed his hands together as he watched the Resistance scum shoot up from the underwater base, soar through the atmosphere, and escape into hyperspace. "You fool, Kylo Ren!" he sneered, already planning out his scheme to wrest control of the First Order once the galaxy rose in revolt against the Emperor's regime. "Did your secret predilection for Harry Potter fanfiction teach you nothing? The jealous, insecure ginger always turns traitor!"
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"So we somehow liberated the populations of several worlds from that grindhouse, exposed the horrors of Rakata Prime to the galaxy, and unified the Unknown Regions," Finn summarized. "Am I missing anything?"
"Yes," Plott'oken said, resting her chin on her hand. "How exactly do you plan to 'unify the Unknown Regions'? The 'Unknown Regions' are, quite literally, everything not contained the 'known' galaxy. Including other galaxies. So are we uniting the nearby Unknown Regions, or do you intend to throw the entire universe at –"
"Oh, would you look at that," Poe said loudly, "it seems we've reached the end of this film's running time."