Force Dyad

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A/N-thank you very much to everyone who kindly read and reviewed the last chapter.

Chapter Thirty-One-Destruction

Rey had descended into hell. As soon as Grimtaash's ramp lowered to the ground, her eyes began to tear up because of the thick smoke billowing in her direction. A sliver of fear made goose pimples break out on her skin as she ran down the ramp and tried to focus her blurred vision on the source of all the smoke. What she saw made her heart bleed.

The Jedi temple was burning!

Rey watched in silent horror as the flames ripped their way through the buildings surrounding the temple itself, tendrils of smoke reaching desperately into the sky, as if trying to escape the blazing inferno below. Panicked, she began to run toward it, completely forgetting about her own safety, her mind filled with terror at what her friends might be suffering inside. Soon she was surrounded by a sea of red, yellow and orange flames as the terrified cries of the young padawans and the other students trapped inside the buildings echoed into the night.

"Finn!" Rey screamed. "Finn, where are you?"

She ran toward the nearest outbuilding-which turned out to be the main dormitory, where most of the younglings slept-and where the most petrified screams were emanating from. She assumed the most likely place Finn or any of the older apprentices were going to be, it would be here, shepherding the frightened younglings and guiding them to safety.

Rey's heart beat frantically as she approached the dormitory only to find the hysterical screams she had been hearing, were actually death cries. One look told her that there was no saving any of those trapped inside. Rey fell to her knees, her eyes smarting from the thick smoke, mixed in with her tears. The air smelt of burning, it was acrid, chemical infused and choking – Rey knew it had been set deliberately. This was no accident.

Rey remained on her knees, sobbing wretchedly. A window blew out nearby, showering her in hot shards of glass. She whimpered in pain as the hot shards scorched her skin, making it bleed in some places. Still on her knees, she moved blindly forward, reaching out for something, anything to tell her this was all a bad dream. Her fingers became entwined with a woollen blanket, which must have once belonged to one of the young padawans, she gripped it tightly as if it were more substantial than a square of multicoloured yarn, as if it could keep her from tumbling into the abyss. But as the flames continued to engulf everything around her, scorching her skin further, and singeing the surrounding trees, what she needed wasn't a comfort blanket. She needed Ben to be here. She needed real comfort, strong arms and reassuring words. She needed platitudes however empty, because if he said them, she would believe it.

"Ben!" She chanted in her head like a mantra. "Ben! Please help me! Ben, I need you! Please come!"


Ben woke suddenly, his every thought in high definition, and with the sound of Rey's panicked voice ringing in his ears. Though his eyes were open it took him a minute to comprehend where he was; his heart was pounding, mind empty. It was if a hypodermic of adrenaline had been emptied into his carotid. He strained his eyes into the utter darkness, breathing rate beginning to steady as he tried to focus. "Rey?" He said out loud, his voice still rough with sleep. "Rey?"

A halo of light, like an arc of brilliant gold in the darkness, morphed in front of Ben revealing Rey to him. She was hunched over on her hands and knees, clutching a woollen blanket to her chest for dear life, its edges stained and blackened with grime. She was crying, it was the kind of desolate sobbing that comes from a person drained of all hope. Their bond opened and Ben was suddenly hit with a wall of her pain, it flowed from her to him, so raw and powerful that it left him gasping for breath.

"Rey!" Ben called to her, his arms instinctively reaching out to comfort her, but they closed on nothing but air. She was already gone.


Rey's emotions swirled with the hot tears burning a path down her cheeks. Each new wave a searing trail of agony as her slim shoulders shook in each rake of emotion through her thin frame. Fire of desolation and anger burned just under her skin and a deep emptiness filled her heart as the devastation she had witnessed brewed over and boiled past the seams she could no longer hold together. She kept calling for Ben over and over, his name spilling in a frightened whimper from her trembling lips. She had a brief flash of hope when she thought she heard his beloved voice saying her name in response to her pleas, but one look from her streaming eyes showed her it was nothing but her imagination.

Rey pulled herself up into a sitting position, still clutching the charred woollen blanket to her chest, clinging to it like a child would a doll. As the flames continued to engulf the temple and all the buildings surrounding it, Rey looked down at the blanket and released her hold on it. The once perfect knit now had finger holes, it was stretched out of shape and there was a singed portion. The charred wool stirred a memory of stamping a flame from it. Funny. The recollection seemed far away, like some half-remembered dream.

Then a gloved hand fell on her shoulder and she raised her aching head to find herself staring into the eyes of a monster.


Ben emerged from Grimtaash to the strange sight of fiery red storm clouds massing in the night sky above and the jedi temple and its surrounding buildings ablaze with fire. Lightning cracked the sky, racing like an arrow right toward the temple, the strike causing an explosion that knocked Ben off his feet and scattered debris and the bodies of dead students.

When Ben finally managed to climb back onto his feet, his throat tightened in terror at the horrific sight of the charred and burned bodies of the students lying broken on the ground nearby. Lightning illuminated a brilliant pathway above, lifting his panicked eyes skyward, Ben realised this was no natural storm. Whoever was behind this sorcery was despicably evil, had probably been planning this event for a long time, hiding in the shadows until that plan came to fruition.

Lightning continued to cut crazy zig-zags into the black sky as Ben took off in a fast sprint in the direction of the temple in search of Rey. He concentrated all his attention on their bond, using it as a beacon in order to guide him directly to her. Unfettered flames, devouring hungrily, continued licking and lapping at the crumbling buildings, twisting and swaying in a dance without rhythm. Blackened bodies, charred bones, unsettled souls, snatched before their time littered the ground around the temple. Nausea welled up in Ben's throat and he was forced to pause momentarily as he threw up on the ground.


Rey was quick to call her lightsaber to her hand as she leapt up nimbly, blocking the strike from her assailant's own saber. A shower of green and yellow sparks lit up the air as their weapons clashed together violently. Rey held her shimmering yellow blade even, a perfect, undaunted horizon; always levelled with the nose, just as Ben had taught her. She had stalled her assailant's strike, but watched a wretched, twisted grin split the lips of the cloaked figure as her saber shivered under the brutality of the other's compelling strength. "

"I see you've built your own saber in the time you've been gone." The cloaked figure throatily crooned, a voice so familiar to Rey that it sent cold shivers down her spine. It was Voe. Their weapons clashed again as they slowly circled each other. "Your skills have improved but you're still no match for me."

"We'll see!" Rey cried as Voe's hood fell back, revealing her pretty features twisted into a bitter scowl. Her blade flashed in the darkness as she brought it over her head and hummed a low, swift tune when she brought it down hard on Rey's yellow blade, in another brutal crescendo of sparks. Rey shuddered under the impact and she gasped as pain shot up her arm.

Voe laughed cruelly as she twirled her green saber, her eyes gleaming with triumph. "The last time we fought I broke your wrist. I intend to break a lot more this time, foolish girl. The dark side of the Force has given me a power and strength that you could only dream of."

Voe's eyes gleamed with a deep hatred and loathing as she advanced toward Rey, intending to make her suffer, before she finished her off completely. But before she had a chance to carry out her threat, the temple's very foundations were rocked by a violent explosion, causing the whole building and the one's surrounding it to collapse in on themselves.

The last thing Rey heard before she and Voe were buried beneath a ton of rubble was the terrible echo of Ben's anguished cry as he called her name.


The explosion rent the air as if it was intent on shattering the galaxy by ripping apart every atom. Ben was just within reach of Rey when the force of the explosion sent him flying backwards, sobbing in anguish as he cried her name. Dazed and confused, Ben climbed slowly back onto his feet, his bleary eyes searching for the last place he had seen Rey, but instead all that confronted him was a monstrous pile of debris.

Trembling violently, he attempted to reach out through their bond, trying to connect with her, but found nothing. It was like Rey had tumbled completely out of existence. He couldn't find her. All that was left was an empty void where Rey used to be, her light extinguished, snuffed out as easily as a candle's flame.

When Ben cried there was a rawness to it, like the pain was an open wound. In his sobbing was the sound of a heart breaking. It cracked wide open in the heaving waves of a new disturbing reality that had arrived uninvited. It was a terrifying reality in which his one reason for living no longer existed. Ben couldn't bear it, the knowledge that he had lost her, that he had failed so completely to protect her, broke him completely. Rey was his light, his happiness, his everything. The pain of her loss was unbearable, he couldn't cope, couldn't comprehend it. All his hope was gone. There was nothing left to live for…. he was dying…. dying…

"Rey!" Her name was wrenched from the depths of his soul as he sobbed wretchedly. He surveyed the death and destruction around him and let out an agonised cry of desolation. "I never…. I didn't want this…."

"And you did not choose it, Ben. The Jedi did. Skywalker. He is responsible for this! It was his actions that killed her!" Snoke's treacherous voice whispered inside his head, manipulating Ben's devastation in order to stoke the flames of his inner rage and confusion.

Ben cast his eyes to the sky. The strange storm had disappeared, the red clouds dispersed as if they never existed. Stars lit the sky like snow-flakes in the night. The shutters came down over Ben's face, his emotion walled off behind a cold mask as Snoke continued to drip his poison. Ben felt the wind blow his hair into a tousled mane as he spotted a familiar vessel floating in the night sky as it began to make its descent-it was Skywalker's X-wing.

A/N-thanks for reading! Please review.