God, I don't know how it took me so long to update. Long story short: school is killing my creativity/mind and I got sucked into the worst cycle of writer's block. Like I cut out several sections and eventually rewrote the entire chapter completely, but I'll die before I give up on this story my dudes.
Rey returned to her quarters on a wave of triumph that warmed the tired muscles beneath her dirtied battle gear. Eager to rid herself of the sharp, metallic scent that clung to her like a child to the corpses of its parents, the young Force user kicked off her boots by the front door and walked to the refresher. There was already a crisp set of underclothes and armor hanging off of a tall metal stand in the corner of the refresher, which excused her from rifling through her wardrobe and armory and creating more messes for the housekeeping droid to clean up.
She leapt into the searing hot shower that she'd started up for herself, feeling her skin already crawling and convulsing around her the instant that she shed the outer shell of black synthfiber and leather. Her first instinct was to begin an external damage assessment to judge the authenticity of her latest victory. Some of the tension in Rey's shoulders dissipated when she didn't find any open wounds on her body that would require healing to prevent scarring. If she could tear through waves upon waves of armed challengers and walk away a fully intact victor, she was ready for the next stage of ascension.
After thoroughly scratching herself clean, Rey slipped into a formidable armored suit that covered her like an inky exoskeleton, the minty smell of soap already masked by the rich oils she'd applied to her skin to keep it from drying out on her next outing. The segments of armor on her shoulders, chest, and elbows clicked quietly as she raised both of her hands towards the high ceiling. Stretching and holding that pose through the burning pain in her upper arms, the Emperor's heir apparent did not allow herself to wince.
She turned to the mirror above the sink and styled her damp hair in a few practiced motions. Then, she leaned in close enough that she could've kissed her own reflection. The pallid face in the mirror stared back at her with its noble features further bleached by the refresher's white light. There would come a day when the olive and tawny hues of those eyes would be replaced by a yellow glow, Rey could feel it in the ice of her bone marrow. She backed away from the mirror suddenly. The short locks of her hair that couldn't be tied back into buns tickled the edges of her eyebrows as she moved to the door.
Rey felt the most at ease in her bed chamber, in the comfortable clutter that reminded her of the first home she'd ever known. The walls there had been gradually obscured by hand-drawn blueprints of her favorite starship models, while the morbid trophy collection she'd amassed over the years was something unique to the lair of a dark apprentice. Swords and axes forged from beskar hung from a ceiling plastered with star charts. Fully loaded blasters and cortosis spears were now mere ornaments on the headboard and posts of the bed in which she slept each night. None of those worldly weapons had held up against her unnatural power paired with the long, metallic cylinder that rested on the sloppily-made covers.
The lightsaber still felt warm when Rey picked it up. Chipping away the dried splatter of blood near the ignition switch with her thumbnail, she concentrated on the residual heat of the two artificial crystals inside the hilt. It was a reliable instrument that had always aided her well in combat from the day she'd assembled it. Rather than clipping it to her silver belt where it would knock against her knee awkwardly, Rey slotted her saber into the specialized sheath at the back of her armored suit.
After tightening the laces of her heavy boots, the dark sider stepped out into the hallway. She passed through the kitchenette to grab a protein bar and paused by her work desk in the living room. No new notifications on her datapad. She set the thin rectangular device back down, directing her attention to the shelf above the desk as the last remnants of the faintly sweetened bar crunched between her teeth.
A week prior, Rey had visited the Citadel's laboratory to meditate in close proximity to the strandcast constructs who were held in stasis there. It was remarkable how a few strings of flesh could be cultivated in a tank of frothy, green sludge until the dark side wove them into a man, or at least a poor imitation. She'd pitted the beings in the tanks against her most vivid memories of her father with his blood-red hair and snow-white skin stretched over symmetrical bones. Superficially complete, yet lacking a key inner component that had apparently skipped a generation. Perfection was hard to attain when nature seemingly sought to destroy it. Those who kept their physical health lost the chance to wield otherworldly power, and most who kept that power lost any semblance of a working body in which to carry it.
Rey sent the shiny wrapper from the protein bar soaring across the room where it dropped into a trash bin. A familiar, hollow restlessness swirled within her once more as she stared at the living room's red carpet until her vision got fuzzy around the edges.
She had no qualms about sacrificing her blood for transfusions or participating in healing rituals. She could handle the days of mental and physical depletion that followed those procedures. But nothing they'd tried thus far could keep up with the degeneration of Palpatine's current body, and while the physically deficient yet Force adept clones filled their own niche well, the Emperor was too prideful to choose a form like that as his main anchor to the living world. That would really only leave her as a potential nexus between the living world and the afterlife, and she was unsure if his spirit would even be able to communicate with her in the event of yet another death. The prospect of becoming a nineteen year old Imperial monarch should've excited Rey, but it somehow did the exact opposite.
The ceiling light flickered to the tune of her morbid musings. She defiantly set her hands on her hips, pacing around the small table in the middle of the living room as she strangled and reclaimed the wayward wisp of her power that had nearly shattered the overhead light fixture. That wouldn't do. A lack of control over external factors had already allowed her family to be torn apart several times throughout history. No. This time around, she would have a say in who holds power and who remains weak, and who comes back and who is forgotten.
Rey turned to leave her quarters with one last glance at the airtight jar on the shelf, which contained a sample of flesh not too unlike her own.
The demanding nature of his grandchild's training made it important for the Emperor to reward her with new little family moments that she could hold onto, buffers for the grueling challenges to come. He wouldn't have a shiny, new armored vehicle to steer from within if he gave his top choice for a successor any incentive to conspire against him. He'd enabled Snoke's comically cruel treatment of the Solo brat for a reason; the Skywalkers had ruined his Empire and he'd ruined their miserable scion along with their other awful contributions to the galaxy, but the score wouldn't be truly settled unless he had an unconditionally cooperative blood heir of his own.
In the end, though, Snoke had become another casualty in the bittersweet, quick chain of events which had also eliminated the First Order's greatest superweapon and Luke Skywalker. A minor sacrifice to make in order to reach the next step of his master plan, really. Palpatine's increasing dependence on medical equipment made it difficult to arrange meetings where he and his grandchild could simply sit together and speak uninterrupted, but he could still relay daunting information to her against the non-threatening backdrop of a play put on by the Sith Eternal's finest performers.
The undead Sith Lord's withered body, fueled by a multitude of alchemical concoctions, was met with warmth when he arrived at his personal auditorium in the private upper deck of the city-sized capital ship. He claimed a seat in one of the middle rows; the one who'd be watching the opera on his behalf would need the best view of the circular stage. With his stately black and scarlet vestments concealing a frail structure that threatened to collapse at every movement, he looked every bit as strong as his coal-black soul felt.
Palpatine's days of towing the borderline between life and death were numbered now. He had successfully molded the unplanned offspring of his weak son into an acceptable shell for him to inhabit. Unlike his other highly Force sensitive creations, Rey was in sound physical condition with an agility and cleverness that compensated for the admittedly scrawny figure that seemed to run in their family. The internal modifications he'd requested upon the onset of her adolescence had only further optimized her functionality as an incorruptible killing machine.
If the essence transfer only granted him partial control or was unsuccessful entirely, he would at least have a faithful successor who resembled him in spirit and was armed with the knowledge that only a Sith Lord could pass to his favored apprentice. However long and arduous the journey had been, he finally had what he needed to quash the anomaly he and Darth Plagueis had indirectly created many years ago amidst their earliest experimentation with midichlorians.
From the cart of refreshments that a servant had delivered to him, Palpatine summoned a cup of hot tea to rest in his blistered, black and purple hands. The mingling spices and herbs were strong enough that his dulled senses could detect them over the constant taste of blood in his mouth. His innards roiled in protest of the drink, already struggling against his ingestion of the foreign substance. The potions concocted by his diligent alchemists and the dark rituals he'd performed with his blood heir were holding the damaged tissue together for the time being, but that wasn't good enough for the galaxy's Emperor.
Palpatine wanted a durable body that could carry unlimited power indefinitely without disintegrating. He wanted the Skywalker lineage to end in enslavement under his control, the way it had begun. He wanted every planet from the Core to the Outer Rim to submit to his new form in a way that it hadn't during his original reign.
"I sense there is a champion of some sort in my midst," he said brightly upon sensing his grandchild's Force signature at the door. "One who is sure to appreciate the particular opera I've requested for this evening."
"Anything that doesn't feature an unsatisfying ending or an appalling romance is fine with me." After entering the comfortably heated space, Rey grabbed her own cup of tea and took the seat to Palpatine's left. The flatness that belied her joking tone didn't evade him and he could feel her eyes scan his discolored hands in judgment of his physical health. Though it hadn't kept her from excelling at her trial earlier that day, Palpatine recognized the weight of silent melancholy hanging over her. A session of chemical re-conditioning would remedy that if Rey didn't pull herself out of it on her own soon.
"I would never torture myself- or you- with content designed to appeal to the small-minded," Palpatine replied with a low chuckle. His years as a young student attending Naboo's most prestigious academy had exposed him to enough of that unpalatable nonsense. Even then, he'd scoffed at the way many pieces of art and literature tried to ascribe a higher value to lust when it was nothing more than a silly weakness that plagued lesser beings who he could exploit. It pleased him to know he had at least one descendant intelligent enough to share his views on the matter.
Once they were both comfortably seated with a drink, Palpatine waved a hand to signal for the costumed men and women who had gathered at the edges of the stage to get on with their performance. The opening scene came with an abrupt darkening of the auditorium and the haunting sounds of voices singing in the ancient language of the first Sith. Peering through the window in his grandchild's mind as she quickly made room for him in there, the Sith Lord could see the figures on the stage for himself.
"It's been a while since we've last eaten together. I'm guessing you're really busy with preparations, now that the Jedi Order has finally gone extinct." Palpatine tracked the movements of the performers with their flowing garments and painted faces. He took a long sip from his cup before responding. Their daily shared meals had in fact ceased a while back. The constricting limitations of his current form also made it so that he was no longer able to take Rey on long, leisurely strolls through various facilities to explain to her how order was maintained in each one. So tragic. He thought of the many other basic activities he might never enjoy again.
"That among many other duties a ruler must attend to. If you're really suffering from boredom, I can easily give you more involved responsibilities up here and down below. The population needs to learn to take commands from you, anyways." Now that her beliefs and character had been set in unbreakable stone, Palpatine felt secure in relaxing the restrictions he'd placed on Rey's contact with other living creatures. He'd already spared her from the development of any malignant empathetic tendencies. With all of the rules of charm, coercion, and control that he'd engraved into her brain across many years, she now had every tool she needed to dominate in social and diplomatic relations.
"No, I won't bother you with my problems that I need to solve myself. The rebuilt Empire needs your full attention and leadership right now, first and foremost."
"I suppose you aren't nearly as needy as a few of my other 'children'." A look of disdain further distorted Palpatine's wrinkled, ashen face mottled with black spots. "The absence of my direct leadership leads to degradation, and one only needs to look at the First Order's current state for proof. That said, the dissent among members of their High Command and the fanaticism of their masses should make an assimilation easier."
Rey nodded, her eyes capturing the dimming red lights around the stage like the galaxy's sharpest camera lenses. At the center of the darkened auditorium, the actors dressed in silly brown robes formed a semi-circle that allowed the audience to see what they were pointing their vibroswords at. It became clear those weapons were not props once the brown-robed actors with their painted on grins began to wholeheartedly stab at the unarmed figures in black. The stage quickly became a mess of red splotches as the young protagonist of the story was forced to watch his defenseless family be murdered by the bigoted gang of clowns in the most authentic portrayal that could be produced.
"If those people were ever actually loyal to the Empire, they'll acknowledge you as their real hero." Though her words were inflexible, the wise old Sith Lord who had raised Rey for most of her life could detect the subtle changes beneath the armor. Her line of sight was drifting off center from the stage and flickering. The tendons in the hand which held her tea cup tensed and her heart rate quickened as she processed each splatter of blood and each mournful word the protagonist sang out. Tapping his fingers against his own cup, Palpatine raised his eyebrows.
"You shouldn't blink so much, young one. Those gaps in awareness can be dangerous and do us more harm than just decreasing our enjoyment of a mere play, can they not?"
"Yes. Right. Sorry about that, grandfather." From then on, Palpatine's view stayed perfectly fixed upon one spot with minimal flickers of darkness. During the third act, he reviewed the warnings and set of instructions he'd be giving her. Certain real, grotesque truths buried in the family's history could never see the light of day. However, a few of the details of its ties to the genesis of the Skywalker bloodline could only help to direct his weapon at the right target. As the opera's protagonist attained his cathartic victory through the humiliating evisceration of those who'd slain his family, the Sith Lord could feel the chilly spike of vindication in his grandchild's bloodstream like it was his own. He relished in using that trauma to bolster his own strength through her.
"Now, there are bound to be problems when an old institution comes back to overwrite the inferior copy that formed in its place." His clouded eyes stared ahead vacantly as he resurfaced from the shallow end of Rey's preoccupied mind. "For the reclamation to be successful on all fronts, the pitiful creature who is presently masquerading as the Supreme Leader of the First Order will need to be either disposed of, or... repurposed." By the time the family meeting of two was over, the stage was vacant and the Emperor's heir understood how they would be working as a single unit to give his visions life.
Where artificial white light illuminated the fleet's starships, cold shadows occupied every corner of the Sith Citadel. Only the upper half of the structure was visible from the outside, an inverted truncated pyramid rising up from Exegol's surface while the unseen lower half laid embedded in the planet's crust. The passages and chambers inside were more intricately designed than the structure's exterior led on, characterized by sharp turns and an ominous architectural style. Archaic runes covered sections on the walls of the corridors, scratched into the stone by the first students of the dark side to inhabit the planet many millennia ago.
The large hall leading to the amphitheater was guarded by tall effigies of some of those brave pioneers who'd dedicated their lives to studying and pursuing dark side methodology. Rey felt their stone eyes following her as she passed through their shadows with her grandfather. If she ever discovered a way to directly contact the spirits of her mother and father, she'd also ask them about anyone else who might be there with them. An opportunity to recover ancient knowledge that had been lost to time shouldn't be wasted.
The grit that coated the amphitheater's floor crunched under Rey's boots as she slowed her gait to look at one of her hands. It glowed a pale blue in the dim light that streamed in from above, already dry and flaky from exposure to the unkind air. The veins under the surface of her skin shined through as dark lines, a sign that she was close to reaching her true form just like her grandfather had promised she would. Rey dropped her hand and pushed her childish excitement back down before joining Palpatine at the far end of the amphitheater.
There loomed a throne with sharp rocks jutting from its back in a radial pattern, like an inverse sun that gave off rays of darkness rather than light. The Emperor made his way up the steps with the grace of a phantom to take his seat in between the tiers of spikes. Rey proudly assumed her position to his left, watching the royal guard who came over to connect each integral cable of the life support system with the corresponding tubes implanted into their ruler's back.
Thunder rumbled from above, a sound that Rey had long since grown accustomed to. She suppressed a yawn and discretely rolled her stiff shoulders. In the days following her latest meeting with Palpatine, a decent night's sleep had become even harder to grasp. The task ahead of her would be different from her usual trials where swift kills were valued above nuance. Her mildly bloodshot eyes traveled up to the high ceiling as a movement from many miles above caught her attention.
"I expect you to neutralize the boy, should he get too belligerent. He has proven to be a liability to his allies and enemies alike, at least without an intelligent mind instructing him at all times."
The clear message unfurled in her mind, transmitted in waves only she could perceive. Rey placed a fist over her chest and folded her other arm behind her back. The sharp angles of her black armor gave her lithe form a venomous appearance that hopefully distracted from the fact that she looked like a tired teenager who'd stayed up late scouring the darkest corners of the holonet via an untraceable channel.
"Alright. Is he stupid enough to try attacking the Emperor, though?"
There was a shift in Palpatine's aura before he turned his head ever so slightly in her direction. He was never easy to read, no matter how far she advanced in her training.
"Why, of course he is. He may reject the ridiculous beliefs of the Jedi, but he will never quite belong up here with us. There are many things he will never be able to access or understand in the way that we can."
Rey shot back a quick affirmation of understanding. Stoically guarding the throne and the last shard of her broken family was her main priority and she wouldn't be letting her guard down. Shortly after the foreign ship touched down on the planet's surface, the lone presence aboard crept out. From her earliest lessons in distinguishing individuals in the web of the cosmic Force, Rey had always been distantly aware of that presence on the periphery of the world she shared with her grandfather. Now it was like an eyelash poking at the inner corner of her eye, impossible to ignore and maddeningly intrusive. Kylo Ren exuded a sort of frenetic energy that was detectable through the thick floor and walls, and it grew ever louder with his ascent into the upper portion of the Citadel.
From her vantage point, Rey steadily tracked the tall caped figure as he appeared at the opposite end of the great hall and passed the statues with long strides. Aside from the lines and swirls of chrome around the visor of his helmet, the rest of the strange man's otherwise entirely black attire was very reminiscent of one other Force user who'd wronged the Emperor. She didn't know whether to pity or condemn him for his emulation of a traitor who'd renounced the dark side in the moments before his pathetic demise.
Ren carried out a rough assessment of every piece of technology and every living thing in the room as he drew nearer to the throne. Though his form had the refinement of a youngling overturning rocks in its backyard, Rey decided to set up a series of shields around her own mind and lay low as she observed his movements. There was a brief moment where he lingered on her Force signature, likely also inspecting her with his eyes before refocusing his full attention on her grandfather. Grating though it was, the superficial moment of contact yielded no useful new information; the contempt Ren had for everything and everyone he was finding on the planet wasn't exactly being concealed.
"I knew you would come to me if I laid down a trail of crumbs for you to follow. Are you here to seek my help or... to issue a challenge?" Palpatine languidly leaned back as if this were just another lackluster opera that he'd have to sit through, already seemingly bored by the time Kylo Ren's boot touched the first step to the throne. The masked man's stance, rigid and marked by the occasional twitch, did not denote acceptance.
"I don't need your help and I won't have you threatening me. I killed Snoke and I'll kill you, for good this time." The helmet modulated its wearer's voice to flatten it, giving him a more commanding tone. Unlike the people of the Empire or the Core Worlds, Ren spoke with an accent that placed a harder emphasis on certain consonants. The voice of the pathetic Rebellion's child couldn't have been more out of place in a stronghold that was serving as a point of rebirth for the Empire.
"If Vader failed to kill me, what makes you think you'll succeed? I can control the natural process of life and death. You cannot even control your own emotions." The Emperor's carefully targeted taunts snapped whatever frail strings had been holding Ren back from lashing out violently. He moved up the steps, the heavy material of his black robes trailing behind him like the plumage of a vulture descending upon a carcass. A crackling beam shot forth from the emitter of the cross-shaped hilt he'd been clutching in his hand. The blade traveled in a high arc, aimed at either the Emperor's head or the delicate wiring of his life support system. It was hard to say for sure because his strike was intercepted before it could cause any damage.
Rey stabbed with one firey orange end of her double-bladed lightsaber to roughly push Ren back and away from her grandfather. The containment fields of their blades scraped past each other, piercing the calm ambience of the amphitheater with a harsh screech. The scarlet hue of Ren's saber reflected off of the sharp rocks around the throne as it moved in a predatory twirling motion. When he took a few paces back down the steps with the unstable weapon defensively held in front of him, Rey got a better look at the two shorter beams of plasma that ran perpendicular to the main blade. She'd be mindful of those in the future; if he angled the hilt just right, they could cut her in a way that most single-bladed lightsabers couldn't.
Rather than advancing forward with a full-blown fight, Kylo Ren lowered his blade to hover the tip a few inches from the dark floor. Though she kept it hidden in the cold recesses of her being, Rey had internally geared herself up for a brutal duel to the death and felt a little cheated by the anticlimactic ending to the altercation. She took a few steps back of her own until she was back at her grandfather's side, though she kept her weapon live and ready in case things went downhill again. A long moment of stillness passed before Palpatine resumed speaking. His white eyes narrowed in their dark pits. It was a look that could've incinerated the strongest axial superlasers of the fleet's dreadnoughts.
"Surely you would have learned by now that childish fits will get you nowhere," the Emperor said through a sadistic grin that bared his jagged teeth. "Think before you act for once and consider the upsides of an alliance. Is the prospect of having access to a greater armada unappealing to you?"
One blade of Rey's vertically poised lightsaber warmed the right side of her face like a flame. Sharing the fleet with someone who'd just made the most blatant assassination attempt ever sounded risky. She strained her eyes to look at her grandfather without turning her head. There was always a complexity behind the things Palpatine said and did, even if his approach seemed counterintuitive to their shared goals on the surface. She still wished to see him strike the insolent worm down in a blue storm of Force lightning if only to make this confrontation more riveting. The disappointingly short-lived clash of blades and insults being tossed around could only keep one's interest for so long.
"I refuse to be another one of your miserable servants. The one failure of my grandfather was him not killing you sooner and taking the helm of the Empire himself."
"You have served me so much already, boy. Snoke was merely one of my creations, another one of the voices I put inside your head. Every time you jumped through a hoop to satisfy him, you were obeying my orders. Why stop now?" The air thickened with that revelation, something that was basic knowledge to Rey but was apparently a world-shattering development for the unstable Force user below her. Ren jumped back as if a blaster bolt had been fired at him and showed some semblance of humility for the first time since he'd arrived. He dropped his aggressive stance entirely and waved his saber at his side.
"You-" The vocoder in his helmet couldn't filter out all of the disbelief and horror in his exclamation.
"If you change your mind and decide that you do want Star Destroyers equipped with weaponry that can destroy hundreds of enemy ships, you have the ability to contact me. From there, I'll give you detailed instructions so you can fulfill your end of the deal. If not, well..." Palpatine trailed off with a humorless chuckle. "You can continue to be a ruler of a farcical imitation of my Empire and make an enemy of me in doing so. When I return to collect what is rightfully mine, you will be treated with no more leniency than the terrorist faction founded by your dear mother."
Kylo Ren's frustration expressed itself in a language not designed for the ears as he extinguished his lightsaber with the same ease in which he'd ignited it. Rey took the scene in from the shadows of the higher ground, picked up on the deep loathing in his silence, and wondered how long this reluctant submission would last. There was no guarantee that he would remain subservient once he left.
"If you have nothing left to add, there's nothing keeping you here. I'm sure your devoted subordinates are questioning why their new Supreme Leader has already abandoned them." There was an amused ill intent in the Emperor's mocking words and an almost audible smile splitting his chalky white face. Rey kept her own features stony and secretive as she continued to carefully dissect and categorize each emotion Kylo Ren projected in his overwhelmed state.
Ren remained silent and tense with his head tilted up, glaring at the occupant of the throne through the helmet's visor. His unoccupied gloved hand clenched and unclenched at his side in a struggle that was dragging him to the edge of madness. He abruptly took a step back, turned on his heel, and stormed off with an unmistakable aggression. Rey didn't extinguish her own saber until he was a mere speck of black in the distance, just to be safe. She waited even longer for him to board his personal ship and pass back through the atmosphere before relaxing her mental walls and inspecting the now vacant space that his Force signature had filled earlier.
Her grandfather said something to her that she didn't fully resister even as she joined him in reflexive laughter. Something at the expense of the disturbed individual who'd just left. Rey was sure she would've genuinely found it funny if she wasn't occupied with the feeling of unease in her gut. Kylo Ren was only technically gone. He still had the comfort of a free, pampered life as the commander of a sizable army that would probably be kept ignorant to the fact that their rightful ruler was in the Unknown Regions. Rey didn't know for sure what Ren was going to do to follow up on his discovery of Exegol, but one way or another, he'd be returning. She could surmise that much from the wild contempt, denial, and even fear she had sensed around him.
As she walked with her grandfather to the transport that would deliver them to the capital ship above the roiling clouds, Rey considered the different paths an insane and incompetent Supreme Leader might take when cornered. There was no way for an outsider ship not fitted with the right technology to breach the naturally occurring barriers around the planet. They'd probably be safe from any large-scale ambushes if the creature decided to take an openly antagonistic stance against them. Still, he could take a more underhanded approach and pretend to agree to the Emperor's terms so he could build up a positive rapport and try to stab him in the back later, like he'd done to Snoke.
Rows of soldiers and robed Sith worshippers knelt before Rey and her grandfather upon their descent from the transport's ramp. Whatever. For every pathetic scheme Ren's scattered brain could invent, she could come up with a dozen better ways to take him out. It could become something of a game, an opportunity to test her ability to control even a difficult subject. Maybe this wasn't too unlike her other trials, after all. Bring it on, Rey thought spitefully as she followed the Emperor into a war room full of uniformed men and women. There, she would get her first real glimpse into the process that would erase the Rebellion's superficial victory.
Well, things are still looking pretty sus. Sorry if there are errors, shit kept lagging and being "autocorrected" to gibberish while I was editing the document on this site. Maybe this chapter was too long for the site to handle oof. I'll try not to take another year to produce the next chapter but we'll see what happens, thanks to everyone who read this and is following/reviewing it.