Chapter Eight

The Empress was furious. Her anger was not uncommon, but this was personal. Kylo Ren, the man who was supposed to stand by her side, had left her here, petrified and cold on the stone floor, waiting to regain her body. She had seen him with her on the throne of the Sith. They were bound together, a dyad in the Force. She wasn't supposed to be alone, not again, never again. The feeling was coming back to her limbs and she groaned, pulling herself up into a sitting position. Now, she had a goal, somewhere to channel her rage. She would destroy Ben Solo. She had failed to kill those who had taken him from her, and that had come back to hurt her. She would kill them all. No one would ever take anything from her again. No one would stiff her of her work's worth of portions. No one would steal what little companionship she had. She was the Sith Empress, the ultimate power in the galaxy. When she was finished, no one would dare refuse her.

The Empress rose and walked back to the apprentice room to collect the cloak she had left on its floor when she wandered back to her room last night. She was going out. Ren may have left her, but there were others on this planet who she could keep under tighter control. She could feel it. She strode out of the unfinished stone palace and out of the Sith Citadel. All around her loomed the shapes of Star Destroyers, some broken into pieces, others nearly whole. There would be so many valuable parts inside, endless possibilities of what she could make. It was a scavenger's paradise. If she had enough time, she could make a speeder so she wouldn't have to walk.

No! The scavenger was dead. Taking the time to build a speeder was far below the Empress's dignity. She could walk.

She could feel the presence of others nearby, up ahead. They weren't those she had originally been seeking, but their presence grew stronger as she approached. They would be the foundation of her army. The Empress made her way around a fallen Star Destroyer, into a camp of humans. They had cleared out a sort of living space and had a fire going in the center of the area. There were between thirty and forty individuals, and stormtrooper armor was scattered around. So these were the survivors.

"Who're you?" The group had noticed that one of them was different.

"Empress Palpatine. And that's no way to address your superior." It slightly bothered the Empress, now that she considered it, that she had never been given a Sith name. But that didn't matter. She wasn't a mere Sith lord. She was Empress.

"You can't be asking us to fight again! We've got wounded," cried the one who had asked her identity.

"You will do what I need you to," the Empress commanded, lifting the man into the air by his throat. She released her grip in the Force and dropped him seconds before he would have lost consciousness. She reached out for each of the survivors' minds and bent them to her will as she ordered: "you will don your armor and collect your weapons, and wait for me until I return."

"We will don our armor, collect our weapons, and wait until you return," chorused back the Empress's new army.

She turned and departed into the field of ships, following the sense of her true quarry. When she found them, she would crush Ben Solo into the ground forever. What was it that he had said? It's the scrappy scavenger I fell in love with. I'm not going to turn for the Empress. Was he suggesting that he would turn for Rey? He had once before. And surely, surely, it would be easier to turn to the Dark with her than to the Light alone. The Empress didn't want to be alone. She didn't want to kill Ben. She wanted Kylo Ren. What reason could he possibly have not to return to her? Maybe she could still turn him. She had always sensed that there was darkness in him. There always would be. But even now, she knew he was conflicted. Perhaps, if she let just a little bit of the scavenger out, she could tempt him, tease him, play him into her grasp. Belief that he had hope to turn her, a reminder that she was the one he loved, these would be Ben Solo's undoing. Kylo Ren was in him somewhere, the Empress just had to reach him. And, if he failed to come to her, she would extinguish him, just as she had planned. The Force would be consumed by Darkness yet.

The Empress could see those she was seeking striding toward her. She sensed them strongly within the Force. The six of them must have felt her too, because they had purpose in their steps. It didn't matter that their numbers were few. This was strength the Empress could harness. The dark, masked figures reached the Empress and knelt before her, setting their weapons at her feet.

"Mistress," one said.

The Empress's mouth curled into a sneer.

"Rise, my knights," she commanded,"for soon we march on your former master."

Author's Note: This chapter was so much fun to write. I guess I should write from the perspective of my antagonists more often.

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