oof ya'll, this is a big chapter. first warning, there are some graphics in this chapter. second warning, I apologise in advance. prepare yourselves.
Ben and Rey wrenched themselves apart to avoid the oncoming assault. Rey rolled across the forest floor, turning to face Cardo. Ben slid across the leaf litter, lightsaber gripped tightly within clenched palms.
His eyes darted to the Knights. They had alighted their pale lightsabers and separated, cutting Ben from Rey. Ben's eyes flashed to Rey, terrified.
How had they already cut them off?
Rey's gaze blazed with determination as her eyes briefly found Ben's.
If they kill us in combat, they won't be able to take our lifeforce. Use their reluctance to injure you to your advantage, Rey.
Rey nodded, before turning her attention to those who begun to stalk her.
Cardo spun on Ben, flourishing his saber, and Ben took several steps backwards, bending his knees, ready. Vicrul begun to circle him, his brutish frame towering over them both, and Kuruk stalked from the edges, narrowed green eyes watching Ben's every move.
Ap'lek had already swung for Rey, and Ben's stomach lurched as he felt her weave away from him, staggering backwards as Trudgen and Ushar pulled their sabers and swung in unison, the zapping electricity only inches from Rey's neck.
"I would worry less about your little girlfriend and more about you," Cardo taunted, before rolling his blade and arching it towards Ben.
Ben's hands flew upwards as his golden saber met Cardo's, electricity crackling through the air as the impact ricocheted down his arms.
Another explosion sounded from above them, and Ben's eyes darted quickly upwards.
High in the atmosphere, laser fire begun to rattle from Hux's vessel as he desperately attempted to thwart Finn and Poe's offence.
Ben's concentration fell back to the surface quickly. Heavy footfalls sounded through the underbrush behind him as Vicrul threw himself behind a blow at Ben's back, and Ben quickly hurled his weight at Cardo, pushing him aside and missing Vicrul's blow by millimetres, so close he could feel the buzzing in his ears.
He was beginning to wonder if he had been correct about their strategy.
Blow after blow was aimed at his head, his back, his chest. Blow after blow he parried, rolling and weaving away just to be descended upon with more ferocity than before.
He ducked underneath Kuruk's assault to take aim at Vicrul; Ben's golden saber swung through the air with such speed Vicrul nearly struggled to move from its path, desperate steps sideways as he moved around Ben.
Cardo took the opportunity to find Ben's back, arching another blow above his head as Ben rolled across the hard forest floor.
A series of explosions shook the earth below them, unsteadying them on their feet, as another stormtrooper cargo careered through the now splintered tree line and imploded.
He could feel Kuruk fall upon him, and turning, Ben raised his saber to meet his blow, grunting as parried a secondary hit aimed at his head. Ben spun, using the momentum to fuel his strike, knocking Kuruk's weapon, kicking his stomach and sending him stumbling backward as he found himself amongst the undergrowth.
Cardo found his opportunity; he came in at Ben's side, overwhelming in his barrage of strikes, and in the distraction, Ben missed the impending swing of Vicrul.
Desperately pushing against Cardo in a bid to avoid Vicrul, he faltered as he heard a strangled scream pierce the air around them, and a gurgling from close behind him.
Rey!
Ben blocked the momentarily distracted blow from Cardo, kicking him in the chest and into Kuruk as he spun to face Rey.
What he saw instead, was the gaping hole in Vicrul's chest as he crumpled to his knees, blood spilling from his mouth as he stared blankly before him. What he heard instead, was the sudden cessation of screaming from Trudgen, as his legs fell dismembered from his body, and Rey's saber slashed across his throat.
Ushar roared as she crouched on the forest floor, saber extended before her, daring Ushar to face her.
Ben used the momentary fury that coursed through the Knights as a distraction, and in a quick bombardment against Kuruk, he slashed his saber across his chest, inflicting a ragged wound that exposed his ribcage, quickly felling him.
He turned back on Cardo, seeing the pure rage that radiated from his pupils, the hatred that poured from every pore.
Cardo's movements were almost as reckless as Ushar's then, but Ben could feel through their bond that Rey was struggling to keep up, jumping backwards across the rocky outcrop, moving further away from Ben.
Ushar was out for her blood.
Ben parried against a blow, and their sabers locked against one another as the electricity burned before his eyes.
If they had a chance, it had to be now.
"Can you feel it, Cardo? Ushar wants vengeance, not power." Cardo's fury filled eyes glanced beyond Ben, absorbing the way his fellow Knight barraged against Rey's counters, as she worked quickly to deflect him and Ap'lek.
Cardo growled at Ben, an indistinguishable noise as he broke the hold and bellowed across the clearing.
"Ushar! She stays alive!" If there was an ounce of recognition, Ben did not see it.
He needed to be closer to her.
Ben fell backwards, away from Cardo's advances, attempting to close the distance between himself and Rey.
There was a quick, explosive build within the force, giving Ben only a moment's notice as to what was about to occur.
Ben's footing faltered as an almighty explosion sounded from above. Staggering backwards, his eyes cast upwards at the same moment he felt Hux's arrogance and triumph ripple through the air.
He had made it aboard Palpatine's vessel.
The explosion did not come from Hux's stormtrooper vessel.
It came from the twin fighter that was now plummeting through the atmosphere, flames erupting from its starboard side.
He felt Rey's terror just before he heard her guttural screech tear through the air.
Rey kicked Ushar away from her, lifting her arm into the sky as she used the force to catch Finn and Poe's fighter. It shuddered through the air, but slowed, it's collision course with the ground cushioned.
Cardo's saber swung at Ben once again, a flurry of vicious attacks as he roared at him. But Ben was distracted, and the saber clipped his shoulder, the smell of burning flesh anew in the air.
Ben heard Rey's muffled cry cut through the air as it cut through him, and he blocked an overheard blow from Cardo, their sabers locked together.
Ben's eyes darted to Rey in just enough time to see her desperately block a blow from Ap'lek, hand still in the air as she guided the fighter's descent to the ground.
Ben threw Cardo off him once more, forcing him away as he leapt across the rockface to Rey's side, but it was too late.
Ben saw the moment Ushar's saber burned through Rey's stomach.
"NO!" Ben and Cardo roared simultaneously.
Ap'lek took several steps backwards, freeing the lock on Rey's saber as he looked on, horrified.
Rey's teeth grit against the pain, and as Ushar pulled the saber from her, a victorious grin on his face, Rey used the last of her strength to cut her saber downwards, lodging the crackling kyber in the recesses of Ushar's skull.
They both collapsed before Ben's eyes, and he watched on, the horror electrocuting his bloodstream.
A heaving and roaring sounded close overhead, and Ben saw that the fighter was on a path that he knew Finn and Poe would not survive.
Lifting his fingers to the air as Rey had done, he used the force to catch the falling wreck, grunting with the exertion. He could feel Finn and Poe inside, injured, but alive. Gritting his teeth, he used as much strength as he could muster to slowly bring the ground up to the torn fighter. The crumpled and fiery metal groaned as it found the ground, sinking into the soil across the clearing. Ben dropped his fingers, shoulders heaving, his attention quickly finding Cardo.
"WHAT HAVE YOU DONE?" Roared Cardo, screaming at Ushar's fallen body. His rage unsated with Ushar's corpse, he turned upon Ap'lek and used the force to snap his neck beneath his fingers.
Cardo then stepped for Rey, the thoughts that reeked from his showing his desperation.
He would pull the last of Rey's lifeforce from her as she died.
Ben stepped before her then. He could feel her life deteriorating through the bond, even though she desperately tried to fight the pain that was consuming her.
Cardo wasted not a second as he lunged for Ben. They clashed, electricity jolting as their sabers collided and crackled against each other. Ben desperately sought an opening, throwing his opponent off balance for just a moment, enough for his saber to burn through the flesh at Cardo's shoulder. He elicited a snarl in response, an animal sound that erupted from deep within his chest as he threw himself at Ben once more, no signs of slowing.
A shudder rippled through Ben as he felt Rey falter, and in his split-second lapse, Cardo's ferocity overwhelmed him, enough for him to slash across Ben's ankle, bringing him to his knees. Cardo kicked Ben's saber from his grasp, skidding out of reach.
He quickly flicked his saber off and holstered the weapon as he took his fists to Ben's face in a flurry, knocking the breath from his chest as the last blow sent him falling to the ground below him.
"I'll take what remains from the both of you." Cardo made out, though he didn't sound victorious. He sounded furious.
Ben's head spun. He tasted blood in his mouth once again, a familiar sensation. Opening his bloody eyes, he looked above him, seeing the sky as the blues and golds melded together in twilight. The stars above him shone brilliantly, constellations he had never seen before glistening to life, but all he could feel tearing through him was Rey desperately clinging to life.
He couldn't let her die.
He grit his teeth, frantically trying to pull himself from the soil that threatened to encase him, but his strength failed.
Tears burnt his bloody eyes as he stared at the space above him, wishing he had more stamina.
Wishing that he had the strength.
He didn't know if he had anything left to give.
You have everything you need, Ben. He heard the whisper, but he wasn't sure if it was in his mind, or in the air.
It was a voice that no longer filled him with despair.
It was a voice that filled him with love.
His father was with him.
But there was a chorus of voices in his ears, encouragement and battle cries alike.
He was not alone.
He had never been alone.
Ben, you can do this, his mother reassured.
Rise, Ben, Luke urged.
Son of my daughter… He heard the whisper of a voice familiar in the memories of only others and not his own.
Complete what I failed to do. Bring balance to the force and save the one you love, he counselled.
Hadn't he always desperately tried to reach his grandfather?
Hadn't he always longed to fill Darth Vader's footsteps?
Tears and blood dripped down his cheeks, and his mind rung with a cacophony of voices, of urgings from those who came before him, Jedi and Sith.
He drew from the dark, and he drew from the light, and he gripped his fingers into the soil below him, pushing from the ground.
"You just don't know when to quit." Cardo scorned, raising his palms before him. Ben felt him preparing himself, ready to take their lives.
"That's always been my problem," Ben whispered, standing now, bloody and beaten.
"You don't understand. You are nothing. I have the Sith of old behind me. Their power courses through my body." Cardo grit his teeth as the air around him shifted, expanding and writhing with energy.
"I am power incarnate!"
"And that will be your downfall." Ben made out, thrusting his hands outwards as he called to his and Rey's lightsabers, sending them shooting through the air towards him.
Igniting the blades, he limped towards Cardo, using the pain to drive him onwards.
Ben could feel the pulsating tendrils around him, and his strength waned as Cardo called upon Sith power of old, draining his lifeforce.
Ben threw himself into the thick of it, brandishing the sabers before him as he inched closer to Cardo.
"You are nothing." Cardo spat, an attempt to drive the venom back through his heart.
The same venom that had poisoned him since he was a child.
But what remained of that venom had been extracted from Ben the moment Palpatine was ripped in two.
He was finally free.
"I am all the Sith, and I am all the Jedi." Cardo's eyes flickered momentarily to the space behind Ben, eyes widening as though the dead had resurrected before him, and it was enough.
Ben lunged, cutting sabers through the flesh and bone of his arms, and spinning on his heel to bring both sabers through his neck and his torso.
Cardo's eyes stared right into his soul, even as his dismembered body fell to the ground before him.
The thickness of the air evaporated, leaving Ben breathless as he dropped to his knees.
The Knights of Ren were dead at last.
Sweat dripped from his forehead and his mind swum, but quickly his thoughts were consumed with Rey.
He turned and crawled over to her, clawing at the soil to bring him forward faster.
He could feel the life leaving her.
"Rey!" He cried, reaching her, and pulling her up into his arms.
Muddied tears streaked her face, and her eyes were glassy as she watched the sky above them.
"Rey, I'm here, it's me, it's Ben," he stammered desperately, pushing her hair away from her eyes, and the amber orbs focused slowly on him, a softness filling her features as she mapped every line and crease of his face.
"Ben," she whispered, her voice barely audible.
A strange peacefulness washed over her, as though she were ready to leave now.
As though she was waiting to make sure Ben had survived.
"No, no, no," he pleaded, pulling her closer into him. "You're not going anywhere, you are staying right here, okay? Rey, please, we still have so much to do. We still have so much to see." The corner of Rey's lips turned upwards as she smiled, melancholy.
"There… There was never enough time…" She coughed weakly, her brows pinching as she shuddered through the pain.
"Ben, I never told you…" He shook his head then, tears dropping from his eyes onto her tunic.
"You can tell me when we get you some help," Ben pleaded, casting his eyes outward across the clearing.
They were completely and utterly alone.
"Ben…" She tried again, fading now. Her eye lids were heavy with exhaustion, but she forced them open again, imploring his own dark orbs.
"Ben, I love you." Rey's lips curved upwards, fresh tears spilling from her eyes as she closed them again, her strength failing.
"Rey! No, please, no, don't go! Rey, please." Ben's stammered cries turned hysterical, and he felt a ripple crash through the force, a weight that crushed every cell within his being.
"No!" Rey's hand fell to the earth below her, her body falling limp in his grasp.
No.
No.
He would not allow her to die.
He refused.
"Rey, I love you too." He kissed her forehead tenderly, tears spilling onto her face.
"Please forgive me."
He placed his hand over the gaping hole in her stomach, where the charred flesh melded with the torn fabrics of her tunic.
Ben closed his eyes, focusing on her.
Their first encounter cascaded into his mind.
Her fear, his curiosity.
This scavenger girl, facing him down in the forests of Takodana, to protect a droid.
His memories shifted to the way they fought on Starkiller Base, the loss and the loyalty that swirled between them as their sabers clashed, turquoise against crimson, light against dark.
He thought of the first time they connected through the bond, calling back on the anger and the confusion that had overwhelmed them, bridging them.
The moment their hands touched, the fear and belonging that ensued, catapulting them towards a different future, a future where they stood side by side, willingly.
Their fight against the Praetorian Guard.
The first time they found the balance together.
The uneasy alliance melding into an unspoken trust.
The secrets that poured from his lips around her.
His deepest shame.
His most dangerous secrets.
The way they sat, side by side, building their lightsabers.
The way the corners of her lips twitched in amusement at him, meeting the slightest of dimples in her sun parched cheeks.
Her warm hands against his face, eyes full of wonder as she brushed the skin where a jagged scar should have been.
Her lips brushing against his, hesitantly, at first, then fiercely, a blinding passion raging through her and them both.
It had always existed between them, a tiny seedling at first, but growing in strength.
The way the golds and the blues bled into the blacks and the reds.
Leaving only the grey.
Leaving only the balance.
The air thrummed underneath Ben's fingertips, and he focused now, homing in on that balance as he felt it amplify beneath him.
The energy pulsated, growing stronger with each moment that passed. His ears pounded, and a fog descended upon him.
His limbs felt weak now, as though an exhaustion begun to grip the nerves in every recess of his body.
A movement underneath his fingers called his attention now, as he fought through the haze.
He opened his eyes tiredly, and they fell onto the way the flesh beneath his fingers seemed to grow and expand, filling the space that Ushar's lightsaber had created.
The exhaustion begun to meld into a kind of conscious paralysis. He willed himself to move, but he couldn't. The wound healed fully then, and he kept his concentration on the thrumming under his fingertips.
He knew he must be dying. He could feel it deep within, but he needed to make sure she was alive.
Ben had to make sure that she would live.
With his eyes trained on her, desperately fighting through the haze, he saw the moment her chest rose slightly as she inhaled. The breath he seemed to be holding escaped his lips then, a weight that had been suffocating him now dissipating into the warm air.
Ben could hear shouting, somewhere in the distance, but the sounds faded, and were instead replaced with a melodic voice.
The tune was the lingering of an old memory, a lullaby to find sleep.
A song from his mothers' home world, a whisper of her past.
The familiar embrace of Leia Organa descended, a warmth which enveloped him tenderly.
Ben knew then that he was finally home.
okay first and foremost, I sincerely apologise! I was going to split this into two chapters but it didn't feel right, so this is basically it ya'll. I loved that Rey had the opportunity to finish Palpatine and her arc was quite fulfilling in TROS, but I wanted to see Ben's arc come full circle too. This fanfic is his story, after all. I wanted to see that full, deep character arc that was there in the films, but could have been expanded upon.
anyway, I think I'll have an epilogue left. what are your thoughts? criticisms? do ya'll hate me for this chapter?
thank you to CEFox7, RedPandaJoy, BrokenMentality, guest and Pam48 for the reviews on the last couple of chapters! review, fav and follow if you so desire. also, please stick around until the end (will be posted this week). I promise it will be worth it. sending you all my love! xxx