I want to thank you all for all of your lovely comments and reviews during the long, long months that I haven't updated (SO SORRY!). I really, really, really, want to thank you all. Words really do not properly convey my gratitude. Thank you.

I also want to apologise for my long, long absence. I have been bogged down with work and school and exams and life but I am here now so hopefully I can get rid of the foul, loathsome writer's block that has weighed me down and get back on track with this story. Starting with this update. I hope you all enjoy it and that it makes up for the eight months that has gone by without an update.

Chapter II.

Before Kylo Ren there was Ben Solo. An academic student: smart and brilliant - a genius, in fact. A loving son always ready to greet his parents with a loving peck on the cheek and a warm, amicable smile that grinned from ear to ear.

He was, without a doubt, a mother's son. Not that he nor his father merely tolerated one another with courteous disdain - quite the opposite actually. He and his mother were just very close. Kylo Ren would simply shrug the notion of attachment and brand it as naturally reaching out to the Force through the only medium he could find.

However, Ben Solo has another side of things. The small whimpering hint of a voice in the back of the Sith-in-training's head would say the truth: he loved his mother. Leia Organa was the one woman who held his heart in the palm of her hands. She owns a piece of him, not that Kylo Ren was aware of that fact and if he was then he was wilfully ignoring it. A small, perhaps insignificant piece of him albeit it was a piece of him nonetheless. Just as he owned a piece of her and his father too. A collective piece; a moral piece.

That piece often spoke out in the deep, dark recesses of his mind - particularly when acts originating from a lust for the Dark Side came in to play. However, that piece was small and weak. Pathetic, really, when compared to the power and force the rest of him could manipulate to his bidding. The last remnant of the boy he grew up alongside: pathetic and weak, clinging on to false hope and his family.

That was why Han Solo had to go.

Ben Solo was little more than a pathetic child clinging on to vague notions of equality and fairness and justice. Love. It was harsh teaching this stupid boy to become an unfeeling, robotic, masked machine - but not impossible.

And little by little did Ben Solo's misfortune become Kylo Ren's luck.

General Snoke could not have been more pleased with the results. Step by step he had transformed a lowly Jedi apprentice into an all-powerful Sith Lord.

...or he would had. Had Han Solo not gotten in the way of the data and rendered it contaminated.

The pull to the Light Side was an anomalous result that had to be quashed completely before discarded with the trash, ready to set up another experiment - and this time, make it more accurate and reliable.

The only thing standing in the way of that had been his pathetic smuggler of a father but, well, he wasn't doing much standing in the end, was he? Not with Kylo Ren's lightsabre buried deep into his chest and out his back.

When he closed his eyes, he could still see him. See Solo's brainless pleading glance as he attempted to reason with the monster his son had become - the monster he drove his son to become.

And that girl, Rey; what right did she have to cry over him as she had? She didn't know him! Didn't know his utter failings as a father; didn't know how little Ben Solo stayed up all night, hoping, praying his father would return with the stupid Wookie in time to read him a bedtime story or kiss him goodnight. She wasn't there when he had to deal with the fact that his father wasn't coming back - she wasn't there when he was shipped off to his Uncle Luke as though he were a rotten vegetable. A sad, scared little potato.

She wasn't there for any of that so what did she know about any of it? All she knew was the Han Solo of legend; the ex-smuggler gone rogue that swooped in and saved the day like a knight in shining armour. She would've thought he was a hero then. And, Kylo noted, perhaps there was some truth in that. But Solo tended to have that effect on other people that weren't his only son. And the Master of the Knights of Ren was sure that only those fighting on the side of the Resistance would find Han Solo a hero.

Whereas those fighting on the side of the First Order looked up to Kylo Ren for guidance and leadership skills. Not to mention his esteemed lightsabre tricks and Force-choking.

He was revered and worshipped like some kind of god. Him, not Han Solo. Not Leia Organa or Luke Skywalker.

Him. And only him.

And that was worth fighting for. That feeling of acceptance and belonging. Because without it, who else was he?

Nothing.

Because where Kylo Ren was feared, Ben Solo was adored. Where Kylo Ren was strong and unyielding, Ben Solo was sympathetic and shy. Where Ben Solo learned from his mistakes and used his newfound knowledge and skills for good, Kylo Ren abused his power to suit his corrupt, ill intentions.

Kylo Ren was a mechanical monster; Ben Solo was a shy, enigmatic child.

Two sides of the same coin.

Two very different sides of the same coin.

Light vs Dark. Two warring sides within him and if he just lets go; tosses the coin...

Who is he?

A lesser man would have known. Known the truth that was laid out as bare as a newborn baby. The truth that living and and breathing and analysing him even as he stood there, resisting the temptation to clutch his aching side in favour of composing his regal darkness. But he was not a lesser man nor would he ever be - the Force that runs within his veins ran within his Grandfather: strong; unyielding. He was not a lesser man. And the truth was a mere composition of broken instruments long since forgotten.

The truth was the greatest lie of them all.

He glared at the benevolent old man opposite him. "Where am I?"

"Where are you?" the man echoed with noticeable bemusement, lifting a brow at that. "I had anticipated a little more decorum there, Ben."

Kylo Ren positively bristled.

"Furthermore," he continued feigned ignorance at the silent rage simmering away beneath the Sith Lord; "I would have thought you'd remember this place, would you not?"

This is a trick. A test. The girl and that troublesome Wookie flew away with it. The Resistance are tricking you.

"You're lying," was all he uttered in that low tone of his. "You're a part of the Resistance. This is designed to test me. Trick me. Whatever- I'm not falling for it."

"Is it?" His voice portrayed his earlier amusement and it irked him considerably. He suspected he knew that. He was playing it to his advantage, deliberately vexing him. Why?

Kylo's eyes narrowed. "Yes."

"What, then, gave me away? Was it the robes; the voice; the sidekicks? I have been made aware those attributes of mine are highly irresistible."

Ren edged closer.

The old man kept conversing, seemingly oblivious to the tension developing between the two. "Oh, no, wait. Don't tell me! Was it the beard?" The mirth dancing subtly in his posture had danced its final dance. The old man got to go.

Now!

"That's enough talking, old man," he growled before lunging forward, his hand instinctively reaching out to where his trusty lightsabre lay, ready to pull it out as quick and as a flash and-

Blank.

His hand came back empty. His thick mane of shadowy curls distorted his visions as his dark orbs located the area where his lightsabre should have been but there was no mistaking it. It was empty.

"Looking for something?"

Him. Ren raised his head and simply glowered at his captor - captor; even that very word brought an acidic taste rising to the front of his mouth - with pure, unbridled hate.

"Who are you," he managed to grit through a clenched jaw, "Where is it? What have you done with it?"

"I'm afraid to say I'm not entirely sure what you mean by that, Mr Solo."

Ren barely managed to refrain from lunging at the foolhardy Jedi once more. The only thing stopping him from taking that action was the offended cry from the gaping wounds littering his body like a plague.

"Don't play coy with me!" he snarled, placing a protective hand over his bloody wound in an effort to lessen the bleeding ever so slightly. "I know you have it. Taken it from me. You," he said, brandishing a long gloved finger at the man opposite, "are testing me. This is a test. And not one I'm willing to pass."

Using his already pointed finger, he allowed the rest of his hand to reunite with the missing digit and raised his whole hand - the hand not currently acting as a barrier between the holes in his broken body and the outside world - so it was level with old Kenobi's face, palm facing him.

"So are you going to tell me where it is or am I going to have to take it by force?"

The Jedi frowned. "I'm afraid I don't know what you mean."

Ren smiled: an ugly, gnarled thing. "Force it is, then."

Focussing all what remained of his strength and stamima, he redirected his power into his raised hand before expelling it from his body. The action felt as though it were ripping through his body both physically and mentally but he would not let a few cuts and grazes from that stupid girl and the talking carpet defeat him.

He allowed the Force to flow through his body at an almost indescribable level and manipulated the small tendrils and whisps to latch on to Kenobi's mind and slowly begin to tug.

All at once, the Jedi's own Force immediately began to act as a defense; an impenetrable shield. Ren had a hard time wrenching the Light aside but all to soon the blinding white began to show signs of contamination as the shade diminished to a meek grey.

Isn't that ironic?" came the amused thought, unbidden im his mind, how even with the slightest shade the Light ceases to matter and is cast away to join the Dark?

The Master of the Knights of Ren found it was.

But the raw, untampered level of power he felt surging within him was one of the best feelings he had ever come across in his entire existence. In fact, it rendered his existence almost not worthy. For what is worthiness in comparisom to the untempered source of raw power, literally, at his fingertips?

He didn't even know this kind of power existed in this part of the galaxy - or any part, for that matter. Nothing he had ever been dealt by or he has dished out even came close to what he was experiencing at that present point in time. Snoke's guidance and teachings never covered- never accounted for this much power and Ren found himself wondering why he even put up with Snoke; why he even needed Snoke if he could learn so much more through the Force.

Eventually, though, Kylo Ren remembered what he was supposed to do and why he was even doing this and set to work poking and prodding and picking at Obi-Wan Kenobi's brain.

However, just as he began to start tugging incessantly at the remnants of the Force, a ripping pain seared through his body with absolute agony. Kylo Ren dropped his hand and, indeed, his whole body, crumpled to the cool tiling of the floor in minute shock and horror at what just occurred.

Ren opened his mouth to spit some vile words out but quickly learnt even that small gesture moved so many aching muscles that snarled in agony. He couldn't focus on anything but the pain.

(If he was able to focus on anything but the pain he would have noticed a similar reaction in Kenobi who merely stumbled back from the sheer intensity of whatever the hell that was.)

The sensation of lithe fingers touching his clammy skin was sufficient in alerting Ren to the present. Ren initially resisted such unnecessary contact and repeated the motion to say so - albeit in a slightly more vicious manner - but what came weirdly out instead was a garbled cry of relief.

He felt himself being lifted off of the frozen flooring and on to something more comfortable. His extensive injuries thanked him gratefully for that.

Kenobi left not soon after but quickly returned carrying a wet cloth and some makeshift bandages. Was Ren in a better state of mind he would have inquired as to where the Jedi managed to acquire those items (and on the Milenium Falcon no less) but he wasn't in better state of mind and so offered little resistance to the Jedi's attempts at patching him up.

"What- What was that?" he breathed as soon as he was able to. The lack of energy left in his body made the question seem innocent but the fire that burned in Kylo Ren's soul was angry.

Ben Kenobi ignored him at first and Ren assumed that the old man was hard of hearing and considered repeating himself but voted against it. (Kylo Ren did not simply repeat himself.) Eventually, however, just as he shut his eyes and gave in to his lethargic body's desire for rest, the Jedi answered:

"That should not have happened," he whispered. Ren had to strain to hear his words. "You may have compromised

everything."

Some part of the Sith revelled in that knowledge.

"He will know you're here," the Jedi continued. Ren had the feeling Kenobi presumed him unconscious and was merely speaking aloud to allow him to get his own head around...whatever it was that was so disastrous - but the feeling dissolved when Kenobi shook his shoulders roughly, jolting him awake.

"Ben," he said to the injuried man grasping the sides of his face and forcing him to look the Jedi dead in the eye, "you have to listen to me. You think you can trust him but you can't. Hes manipulating you in the same manner you and I manipulate the Force only, instead of leaving the Force when we no longer need it, he will crush you. Eliminate you."

"We're coming up on Alderaan!" Not-Han's voice informed through the speakers.

Kenobi's eyes slid shut of their own violation. "You're too late."

Something happened then; something shifted through the Force and Ren tried to keep his eyes open but fatigue struck and, with a collapsing sigh, he fainted.

A shadowy figure, clad in darkness, strode the willowy tendrils of darkness. They stopped abruptly and turned, breathing in deeply, before continuing down the trail with newfound purpose; a bounce in their step and a smirk on their lips.