Kylo exhaled when he felt the tingling of her presence. In vain he tried to focus on his meditations, finally he gave up and his eyes snapped open. He saw Vader's mask and behind it she stood, glaring at him.
"Despite everything I have told you, shown you… you still cling to the Dark Side. Why?"
"Because I want to," he hissed. "Because I want to be free, free of everything."
She took a step closer to him, then she hesitated. "You once told me that you want the past to die, but it makes us who we are. Even if it was painful."
"Speak for yourself." Kylo was annoyed that she kept on trying to convince him to join her. How could he have thought that she was his Padmé? She wanted to tame him, make him docile. Not like Hux. Hux wasn't afraid of him and enjoyed his feral nature.
Perhaps she would understand if he explained?
"Do you know why I wear my mask?" he asked.
"I assume it's to emulate Darth Vader."
He nodded. "I thought that I was supposed to honour his legacy." He licked his lips. "I felt untethered by everything, nothing holds any meaning to me. But I needed an anchor so I made a mask that I thought was sacred and important. A symbol of my newfound freedom."
She crooked her eyebrow. "Hiding one's face doesn't sound like freedom."
Rey really was perceptive, he thought with reluctant awe. He got up and stepped to Vader's mask, looking down on it. "You are right, it's just another cage. I didn't realise it but it wasn't the mask that set me free. It was passion I gain strength. Through strength I gain power. Through power I gain victory. Through victory my chains are broken."
"Citing the Sith Code, huh? You realise that they weren't exactly free either, right?"
"Neither the Jedi or the Sith were truly free. Because they followed their dogmas blindly. I don't intend to make the same mistake." He turned around and went to his mask that was sitting on the table in the back of the room. "The mask means nothing to me now, he made me realise that I'm the only one who can free myself. No Sith relic can accomplish that."
"'He'?" Rey asked, but her voice already started to fade. "Snoke can't possibly-" Her image vanished.
"He is my love, my life, my passion. And I will give him what he deserves," said Kylo even though there was nobody to hear him.
-o-
Kylo knew that Hux wouldn't approve but he couldn't sense Snoke's presence in the Force like he could. The old man was careless during their so-called training sessions. Snoke would order him to fight against his Royal Guards or the Knights with him watching from the throne. At times he trained him personally, meaning that he used the Force to humiliate him, taunting him.
Today was one of these days. Snoke grinned with his crooked teeth. "I can feel your anger, apprentice. So strike me down if you can."
This was the opportunity he had been waiting for. He would conserve his energy until the very end, when he knelt in front of Snoke like always. With one quick strike he would kill him.
Kylo gathered the Force around him and attacked Snoke with a Force-push, Snoke of course deflected it easily with a mere gesture.
Kylo ignited his lightsaber and lunged at Snoke, using the Force to press him firmly against his throne. Snoke was surprised and stopped smirking as he shot Force lightning out of his fingertips. Kylo managed just in time to lift his lightsaber, but the sheer power made him lose balance and he fell on the floor. Snoke got up from his throne and shot lightning at him again.
Excruciating pain seared through his body and he lost his grip on his weapon.
"I'm getting tired of this, apprentice. After all this time you still try to fight me head on? Didn't your ginger whore teach you to back-stab?"
Kylo's limbs still twitched from the lighting but he still managed to glare at Snoke. "Don't call him that," he pressed out in a coarse voice.
"After everything I did for you… you still disappoint!" sneered Snoke. "Do you want to know why I set up the Force connection between you and that filthy scavenger?"
Kylo's eyes went wide. Snoke… had arranged that?
"You don't believe me?" huffed Snoke. "Search your feelings, silly boy. You can sense the truth."
After all this time he was but Snoke's puppet? All the times he had thought that he had a great destiny was but a lie? Snoke had tried to force him yet again to become something he was not.
He could feel anger taking hold of him. It was true, he could sense it.
He gritted his teeth and pushed himself up, stumbling on his feet. He willed the lightsaber back into his hand.
Snoke had a blasé expression on his face. "I thought that I could make a man out of you, but you threw that gift back in my face by letting the scavenger escape, by wasting your time with a rabid cur, a lowly bastard."
"I said don't call him names!" hissed Kylo.
Snoke threw him back on the floor with a flick of his hand. "My my my, you really like him, don't you?" He laughed, it sounded like a stuttering ion-engine. "Ah, youth… but you are beginning to be more work than you're worth. Especially with the scavenger around - she is more powerful than you and I suspect that she can be moulded more easily in a useful tool than you."
Realisation sunk in that this was different from all the other times. Snoke was different - he was serious about Rey!
"But because I'm generous, I'll give you one more chance, my dear idiotic apprentice. Kill your whore and I will spare you."
"No!" screamed Kylo. "I'll-"
Snoke lifted him up in the air and Kylo lit his lightsaber again. "You are useless, you are even too dim-witted to pretend to agree, aren't you? Carrying your heart on your sleeve like the Rebel scum you should be fighting."
Kylo summoned every last bit of Force and used it all to break Snoke's hold over him, he dropped down on, leapt at Snoke and was about to rip his throat out when he was pushed back once again.
"The audacity! You really think you can best me?" Snoke snared and shot lightning at him once again. The pain was so overwhelming that Kylo thought that his teeth would shatter, his bones would break under Snoke's wrath.
The last thing he saw was Snoke's misshapen face as he laughed.