Just as a heads up, the main characters will have some... extreme views that don't reflect my own opinions. Like, Sheev and his grandbaby will say/think things that kind of dehumanize certain groups within the SW universe, even though I personally think my boy Luke deserved better and I have nothing against the Jedi.
There's some sketchy stuff where some people unironically think that the Jedi are worse than the Sith and that the original heroes are bad people who deserved to die, so I felt like clarifying that I'm not about that life.
The scars of being orphaned stayed with Rey through the years, taking on the forms of vivid nightmares and intrusive mental images. They were always there to make sure she never forgot her parents' undoubtedly drawn out, excruciatingly painful deaths. During the day she would learn and play, often following her new guardian around as he travelled between Exegol's most important places filled with people in cool uniforms who would regularly bow before them. At night, she would struggle to clear her mind enough to fall into the hellscape conjured up by her unconscious mind.
Rey only wished she could've had more time with them so she'd have a clearer picture of who they were. What they'd been like without the stress of being on the run from an inescapable threat. The relationship between her grandfather and her parents had been an estranged one, which made it difficult for him to tell her much about them.
According to Palpatine, maintaining order in the galaxy and dealing with insurgent groups had left him with very little time to raise a confused, adolescent son with an anemic connection to the Force. Eventually an unfortunate conflict of personalities and lifestyles had culminated in her father running away with a nameless royal guard-in-training to begin a new life away from his own father. All Palpatine could tell Rey about her mother was that he hadn't even known about her closeness to his son until they'd both disappeared together. Even though that frustrated her, Rey always came back to the most important detail that neither her parents nor the man currently raising her were the villains. It was the cosmic Force and the Jedi who slavishly allowed it to dictate their every move that had done the real irreversible damage.
Both of her parents had battled the pressure of guiding their extraordinarily gifted child through obstacles that they couldn't see for themselves, all while shielding her from the evil eyes of Jedi and New Republic leaders who wanted to rid the galaxy of all non-conforming Force usage and anything related to the Empire. They'd ultimately chosen to die so she could live long enough to be rescued by her grandfather. It was their sacrifice that Rey really didn't want to forget, and her hatred for their killers only grew with her.
Rey's appetite for information about her parents was curbed by the crumbs she'd been given, at least until her age reached the double digits. That was when she began asking questions that were harder to answer.
Following a lesson where her tutor droid described the vile process of human reproduction to her, Rey wondered how it was possible that her father had somehow entered the world as a teenager without going through the useless, mushy infant phase, or that he had no actual mother of his own. After the lesson, she marched into the throne room with datapad in hand and face drained of all blood, firing off a series of questions that only earned the laughter of her grandfather. Needless to say, she returned to her quarters with the knowledge that there are more sophisticated methods of creating life than what most educational institutions put in their curriculums.
From that point on, Rey would encounter the topic of genetics in her homework and remember that because her father's DNA had been nearly identical to her grandfather's, some of those rules didn't apply to her. And that her grandfather was technically genetically her father, too. She got headaches trying to make sense of that but also found it strangely reassuring. In a way, this was the closest she'd get to either of her parents ever again.
They wouldn't be there to witness the great things she would achieve with her powers in the flesh, but she still had that drive to make her mother and father proud, and prove that she'd been worth dying for. If an afterlife for less attuned Force sensitives existed, the spirits of her parents deserved to see her reach her full potential.
As the Emperor's heir, Rey got everything she needed. With the entirety of the capital ship at her disposal, there was always an activity she could partake in to better herself in some way. And nothing quite matched the feeling of victory whenever she successfully executed a new use of the Force during her training sessions. There was plenty of room to run, climb, read holo-novels on her datapad, and test the limits of her powers when she wasn't being held up in a tutoring lesson. She had a wide selection of tools and resources to feed her burgeoning interest in tinkering with machines. There was no denying that her future was shaping up to be great.
However, Rey never developed any optimistic delusions about the standings of the outside world. She had too much pragmatism for that, be it a learned trait or something in her blood. Very serious threats still prowled beyond the fortified walls around her and the murky gases around Exegol. Palpatine spared none of the bleak details when he shared stories of his own past with her.
He'd worked hard to free the galaxy from the Jedi's grip and unite the Core worlds under an Imperial system of government. For a long while, he'd had his half-man, half-machine apprentice dutifully serving him as an obedient attack dog. That's how all Skywalkers ought to be, on a leash and waiting for their master's next command. But a decade before Rey's own birth, a Jedi terrorist named Luke Skywalker had come to assassinate Palpatine on his throne. His apprentice had sided with his Jedi son to commit the lowest act of treachery against his master. That was how her grandfather ended up in his current condition, occupying what was essentially a corpse.
Over the years, Rey saw more and more signs of deterioration in Palpatine's visible features, though his spirit never lost its edge. He was great at creating diversions with impressive displays of his control over the Force. Followers of the Sith Eternal saw an invincible deity who could spit in the face of nature and walk away unscathed, but Rey saw that her only physical tie to her family was gradually disintegrating.
Her sparse glimpses beyond the dreadnought were often directed down at the geometric form of the Citadel on Exegol's surface. Her skin crawled when she looked up at the stars and imagined the vile things happening on the planets that revolved around them. It probably wasn't too bad in the places that were occupied by the Imperial remnant being ruled by a Supreme Leader who Palpatine claimed to be staying in touch with. Those places were likely few and far between, though, with most of the galaxy being under the New Republic's poisonous influence.
Instead of dreaming about the good things in life, Rey spent the night of her thirteenth birthday staring at the distant specks of light through the viewport by her bed with dread. She thought about the despicable Jedi and Skywalkers who would want to eviscerate her the instant that they learned of her existence. Eventually and reluctantly, she did end up drifting into the realm of nightmares, carried by the tune of an opera music tape that her grandfather had given to her to "cultivate her appreciation of the higher arts".
All mornings began with breakfast in the dining hall of Palpatine's dwelling and the day following Rey's thirteenth birthday didn't deviate from this routine. The only change was that this time, one of the rotting digits on his non-dominant hand was leaking a tar-like black fluid onto the silver tablecloth. Rey ignored it and stabbed at the food on her plate. Asking questions would've accomplished nothing there, since he always shut down her concerns and denied the worsening of his physical condition.
It would've went about as well as the times when she tried to get more information about the other young Force user who he was watching. A miserable Jedi who also happened to be from the damned bloodline that had singlehandedly ruined the Empire and plunged the galaxy into an era of ignorance.
Instead, Rey spoke up about the speeder bike that Palpatine had given to her as a birthday gift. That was the comfortable go-to subject for them both.
The Emperor proudly recounted how he'd been an avid biker himself at her age and the two of them laughed over his retelling of an incident where he'd struck a pedestrian on the streets of Naboo. It was a pleasant distraction from his diseased finger, and Rey liked learning the little details that proved her grandfather was even cooler than she'd first thought.
Out of habit, she headed down to the nearest training room after breakfast to hone her melee combat skills. Rey did a few warm-up exercises, then sparred with a droid for an hour to practice her fighting forms. She grew bored of fending off the predictable strikes rather quickly, though. Not bothering with activating another droid after destroying the first one so easily, the young Force user slung her quarterstaff, her preferred weapon of choice, over her shoulder and briskly walked across the room to leave. It had been a while since she'd last struggled in a mock duel against one of those machines. Being able to sense her opponent's movements before they came to pass gave her a significant advantage, and she always just dodged the stun beams being fired at her.
But her psychic abilities didn't stop Rey from being frustrated with the limitations of her physical form. No matter what she ate and how hard she exercised, she remained wiry and lean. According to the credible assessments of several medical droids, her projected adult height was roughly five feet and eight inches, give or take an inch. She was keeping her fingers crossed that she'd at least grow a few more inches to match her grandfather's height, if she couldn't build more muscle mass. Otherwise, she'd have to say goodbye to any future as an intimidating warrior.
Rey looked up at the ceiling with a huff, her gaze landing upon light fixtures and wall panelling that harkened back to the classic interior design of old Imperial ships. Taking a joyride on her new speeder did sound like an exciting way to dispel her boredom and discontent.
A ride on the nearest turbo-lift and a walk past one of many hangar bays brought her to the large storage unit that only she could access. According to Palpatine, she needed all of that space for any additional vehicles she might acquire in the future, or any other possessions that aren't fit for storage in her living space. For the time being, Rey only had one speeder to choose from and she was okay with that.
In the brightly illuminated space, the speeder's black casing gleamed. Its innovative design made for a compact piece of equipment that the young teenager could carry without needing to use the Force to ease the weight in her arms. Rey slapped the access panel to shut the heavy door guarding the storage unit, swinging a leg over the seat of her speeder.
The repulsorlifts let out a low thrum when she flicked the ignition switch. A moment later the soles of her boots no longer touched the floor, and she was racing down a corridor that opened up to a large circular room with a high ceiling. Rey clutched the steering wheel tightly, exposing her clenched teeth in a mischievous grin as she watched the soldiers stationed in that wing stepping aside to avoid becoming speed bumps.
She recognized the circular room as an auditorium. There were days when every seat in every row was occupied by the priestly class of the Sith Eternal, their rituals creating a heaviness in the air that always caught her attention. Where Force users contacted the Force directly, commoners could only elevate their lowly souls through agony, and the worshippers spent every day of their lives trying to recreate a fraction of the divinity that their Lord possessed. Rey did a few laps around the room, trying to find any red stains on the seats, floor, or center stage. None. The cleaning crew had done a really good job of erasing any evidence of the last sacrifice from each matte grey surface in the room.
Rey frowned before riding her speeder bike into a different corridor than the one she'd entered the auditorium from. She expected to catch sight of at least one man or woman in a dark red robe, passing between their designated rooms of worship and alchemical laboratories. So far she'd only seen soldiers standing at their posts or hurrying to their next assignments. The overlapping thoughts of every sentient being in her general vicinity were usually so loud that she had to constantly block out the cacophony to preserve her own sanity. Today, it was more akin to a mild drone.
Goosebumps rose under the thick material of Rey's black jumpsuit as the chilled oxygen of the ship whipped past her. Her grip on the throttles eased, allowing the speeder to slide into a more leisurely speed.
There were other Force users out in the galaxy who would condemn her for her unnatural use of her powers. Palpatine had repeatedly assured her that he was working on cleansing the galaxy of Jedi, but what if he missed one? What if the one he was trying to convert to their side ended up pulling a fast one on him? Much like with bacteria, all it takes is one survivor for the disease to perpetuate. Rey knew enough history to worry about it repeating itself. Everyone thought the Jedi went extinct after the formation of the Galactic Empire, too, until they reemerged.
Her ride took her to a broad walkway that overlooked a facility where smaller starships were continuously being manufactured. It was a place where Rey frequently found herself staring down at the various TIE fighter models being assembled, wondering when they would be deployed. She figured the armada of warships wouldn't be launched until the second phase of the plan, once the Jedi were fully eradicated and no longer around to obfuscate the rebirthed Empire's reclamation of the Core worlds.
Rey peered over the guardrail whilst still seated upon the speeder, listening to the clanging and screeching of durasteel beams being forcibly fused together.
She just wanted to know what was going on. Anything that ever happened on the capital ship was coordinated and approved by Palpatine himself, and he seemed pretty upbeat at breakfast. Under normal circumstances she'd be able to cross out the possibility of imminent doom. But this was the same man who could reminisce about his teenage years while his finger wound leaked liquid rot. Though she admired his confidence, Rey also doubted that he'd concede defeat even if there was a black hole consuming his entire fleet.
She turned her head to look at the opposite end of the walkway when the noises of the production line below were suddenly muffled, and the fine hairs on the back of her neck stood up. The ghost of a burning scent flooded her nostrils to accompany the disturbance rippling through the Force and through her bones. Her left hand immediately reached back for her quarterstaff.
It took some time before Rey regained her grounding in the physical world and could stand. She abandoned her speeder bike on the edge of the walkway in favor of sprinting to the closest turbo-lift, her fingers shaking as they pressed at the keypad inside of the lift. Once it reached the level where the throne room was located, she practically stumbled out of the lift with a dazed look.
She needed to get to her grandfather immediately.
The heavy doors slid open to permit her entrance into the throne room. Rey found herself temporarily rooted to the black marble floor upon stepping inside, taking in every sight and sound. She hadn't been ready to step into a loud mass of people writhing everywhere. None of the worshippers so much as looked at her from beneath their hoods as she began the long walk to the foot of the throne, where her grandfather hovered in a meditative trance.
Rows of Sith Eternal priests and priestesses lined the perimeter of the throne room, donning bright red robes with the usual frills and tassels that designated their higher religious authority. They chanted praises at their holy Emperor, who was in tune with the ebbing flow of the Force in a way that none of them were. Draped in a shimmering black fabric that pooled around his feet, Palpatine floated a solid meter above the seat of the throne, the long cables of his life support system hanging behind him.
Rey got midway through the center aisle and shook off her concerns. The throne room looked more like a stadium of fans celebrating the victory of their favorite sports team than anything else. Well, except for the minor difference that most of them were running ceremonial knives over their own flesh. That fresh metallic scent mingled with the phantom smell of burning flesh to hasten her steps.
A peal of lightning pierced the hazy darkness outside the large viewport behind the back of the throne, illuminating the entire room just as Rey got within three meters of her grandfather. Usually he welcomed her in with a bombastic greeting the moment she entered the room, so it was strange when he didn't acknowledge her presence. His eyes also looked to be shut under the shadow of his hood.
Rey took a moment to block out the coalescing words coming from the minds and mouths of the robed followers. Tentatively, she reached out to tap at her grandfather's Force signature with her own.
"Wonderful, isn't it?" he finally spoke. Periodically his eyes shifted beneath his eyelids, following movements that transcended the observable world.
"I'm sensing something... many losses of life. What's the occasion?" Rey replied. Another tremor in the Force passed through her, sending a cold sensation up the length of her spine.
"Here's a clue. I would see this as a sort of late birthday gift if I were you."
The clue only confused her more. Not wanting to make any guesses in fear of sounding dumb if she guessed wrong, Rey silently waited for Palpatine to explain the strange happenings in the Force in a way that made sense.
"I know how deeply upset you are by the idea of your dear mother and father's murderers roaming unpunished among the stars. But today is the day when that problem will be lessened, rather substantially."
"Did the ones that... did it, finally pay?" Rey followed her grandfather's lead and closed her own eyes to concentrate on the expansive energy field that connected all living things.
"Possibly." His voice rumbled distantly in her mind. "But our fight is far from over. Skywalker still lives."
Many veins in the Force were freshly opened, causing it to writhe much like the Sith worshippers around her. At the sparsely wooded center of the chaos on a planet that Rey didn't recognize, flames consumed Skywalker's temple. There were unintelligible shouts, raindrops hitting rocky ground, bodies being thrown around, and the crackle of plasma swords striking one another. Some of the strikes met flesh. Though the Force signatures of the staunch Jedi zealots were dying out, there were also a few others that were opening up to the dark side as their owners tossed aside the lies that had been drilled into them from their youths. Those few drew their weapons to aid in the slaughter, moving forward to stand beside the darkest of them all. Leading the charge was none other than the shameful product of a union between Vader's daughter and a Force-null thug.
Rey's brows drew together and her eyes snapped back open. She knew Palpatine wanted to burn that entire family tree down from the roots to the branches. They had ruined everything for him, and consequently for her as well, when they broke away from their leashes to become insurgent rogues. But what if he decided this descendant of his old apprentice was a stronger warrior and could fill the throne better than she could? Rey could sense the age gap between herself and that- creature. Where she was skin and bones, he was mostly muscle. He'd spent enough time with the Jedi to learn their deepest weaknesses, and now he'd also be receiving dark side training from the mysterious First Order's Supreme Leader. A seething hatred for someone she'd never met began to brew.
"It won't be long now," Palpatine said, his white eyes gleaming. "With those obstacles cleared from our path, the Empire and, by extension, the Sith will soon be able to enter the next phase of this fight. Skywalker is alone now. No lackeys to idolize him, left to be forever haunted by this failure. So many fools handed their brats over to him in hopes that he'd make them into heroes, and now they're either dead or have turned their backs on his teachings. Really though, how could anyone have made the error of trusting the Jedi again?" He shook his head in mock disappointment.
Rey nodded in agreement. The wheels were already turning as she began to think about how she'd top this. If the master didn't have any living successors to pass on the teachings, killing him would mark the real end of the Jedi Order. But she wasn't stupid. It would be laughable to think that she could go toe to toe with a seasoned Jedi of many decades for more than a few seconds with her current level of experience. She was just a kid who had fast reflexes and could make things spontaneously combust with her mind. She'd have to set her sights on a more attainable goal for the time being and gradually make her way up the ladder to near omnipotence.
The wait for a moment alone with just her grandfather was tedious. A lengthy battle of the wills ensued, and every worshipper stayed in the throne room until the last of Skywalker's loyal Jedi knights was dead. Rey stayed at the bottom steps leading to the throne, watching the robed men and women rejoicing loudly with shrill cries of triumph. It took even longer for them to reorganize themselves and leave through the side doors in an orderly manner, and it floored her to know that this was a mere fraction of the Sith Eternal's clerical body.
"Now, with this cleansing will come many other changes," Palpatine declared after the doors closed behind the last of his retreating followers.
Rey turned to fully face him. He no longer hovered above the throne, now sitting upon it the way any regular mortal would.
"More advanced training?" She wanted to know the true depths of what could be achieved with the Force, how it could be used to alter and reshape both living and non living features of the world. There must've been so many different ways to create and destroy life, and she was eager to learn them all.
"Yes, something along those lines." Palpatine's fingers, no longer bleeding, settled on the throne's armrests. "As young as you are, my standards for you remain high, and it would be quite an ugly situation for my heir to be weaker than my enemies."
"Uglier than Vader after he got cut up and fried," Rey replied with arms folded. Her need to conquer and break this nephew of Luke Skywalker spiked. She wouldn't rest until she was powerful enough to exterminate him ten times over.
Palpatine smiled at her fierce rejection of weakness. That kind of attitude wouldn't leave room for stagnation or failure. He leaned back with his head held high.
"I doubt you'll be quite that disappointing. But moving along, I believe this is as good a time as any for you to get familiar with the art of producing force lightning."
Rey blinked, not expecting a lesson to be sprung upon her so soon. She thought of the instances where she'd seen the ability being used. The way the blue arcs of electricity would flow endlessly from her grandfather's fingertips had always enraptured her. But the only way a Force user could "learn" to replicate it was by being electrocuted themselves, and she had a feeling this would be one of the unpleasant trials he'd forewarned her about when he first started training her several years ago.
"Will it feel more like a stinging, or a burning?" Rey steeled herself for whatever would come next. She thought she had a relatively high pain tolerance, being able to endure the stun beams of a sparring droid or a syringe piercing her skin without flinching. This would be nothing like either of those experiences, however.
"Both," Palpatine spoke from his own experience. "I don't wish to harm you, of course. You can trust me when I solemnly swear I won't subject you to anything that won't strengthen you in the long run. This will be not unlike a medical procedure- unpleasant for a fleeting moment, but improving your odds of survival."
Rey looked up at her grandfather and reconsidered the situation. If he lived through having his face nearly melted off by a prolonged concentration of the current, surely she could handle a light zap without being utterly incapacitated. She was no weakling.
"Well, alright then. I'm ready." She planted her feet to the floor in a balanced stance and held her arms stiffly at her sides.
Palpatine lifted a hand, his index and middle fingers pointed out in her direction while his other fingers curled in towards his palm. There was a pause, then a flash of blue that Rey barely processed before the current hit her. Somehow it caught her off guard even though she'd been fully expecting it. She stumbled back a little, willing herself not to make any pathetic sounds even as the air was knocked out of her lungs. Radiating from her sternum, the electrical shock felt like hundreds of needles stabbing her all at once while a few dozen stun beams were also fired at her for good measure. Where'd she'd been cold earlier, she was now warm, but in a way that felt very wrong.
Rey straightened up from her partially doubled over pose with a hand over her chest. Her strained features relaxed back into a neutral expression as she looked into the emptiness of her grandfather's eyes, her brows lifting and jaw unclenching. True to his word, he'd definitely given her the most merciful shock he could probably give, and most of the discomfort was from the little aftershocks rather than the initial blast.
But now a new door had been opened, and she wanted to see what the strongest current would do to an organic being.
"So, in theory... " Rey began curiously. The phantom of a tingle lingered in her extremities after it had faded through her torso in ripples. "Could one use this ability to cook their food alive, if they concentrated Force lightning on the creature's body for a long enough time?"
"Anything is possible with enough conviction and innate talent." Though it was the same kind of praise she'd heard from the Emperor many times before, it didn't fail to elevate her spirits regardless. "I will be entrusting you with information that no other living beings are privy to, not even Skywalker's rogue nephew. I expect that you will use this wisdom honorably and responsibly, as certain uses of the Force can cause damage that isn't so easy to sweep under the rug." At that, Palpatine silently invoked the many incidents where Rey had accidentally overshot with her powers and ended up having to repair whatever piece of equipment she'd broken. She cringed at these old memories being dragged back out for scrutiny before fully returning to an assertive posture.
"I will, grandfather."
Review, whether you hate this story and want to kick it in the balls, or want to give it a hug and buy it a cake. Feel free to make guesses about what will happen when Rey gets older, because this might get pretty weird.